Butter(-milk)

I recently used the Joy of Cooking's recipe for Irish-American Soda Bread as the foundation of a kitchen experiment. JoC is usually a great reference and an excellent starting-point for me. I rarely have all-out success with their recipes as-printed, but who wants to follow a recipe verbatim anyway?

What caught me this time was the following ingredients:

4 tbsp butter
2/3 c. buttermilk

The butter was meant to be melted and whipped into the buttermilk with an egg.

Now, buttermilk is the by-product of whipping cream into butter. So by adding melted butter to the buttermilk, aren't you just re-constituting the original heavy cream? Even the proportions look about right here.

So why?

DIY Mozzarella

This took me 15 minutes to make (plus another 15 waiting for the cheese to chill), which fit in right after work and before taking the dog to the park, leaving me with fresh, handmade cheese to bring to Katie's for dinner. No Martha Stewart, but not bad, right?

The one caveat is that this recipe uses pre-made cheese curd, which can be hard to find. We are selling it right now at The Pasta Shop, but you can also make your own with the right materials (blog entry to follow, also see www.cheesemaking.com for supplies).

The quantity of curd is entirely up to you - how many balls do you want? How big do you like your balls? There is a lot of ball freedom here.

1. Cut your curd into 1" cubes.

2. Heat a big pot of very salty water (1/3 c. salt to 5 qts water) to just before boiling (170 degrees if you have a thermometer).

3. Put your curds in a large, shallow bowl. Pour ~6 cups of the hot water water over the curd and let it sit 2-4 minutes until the curd is warm all the way through, soft and malleable.

4. Pick up (with a spoon, because the water's hot) as much curd as you like - i.e. more curd for big balls, fewer cubes for small balls - and knead the curd between your hands until it is smooth and elastic. If you overwork it, the mozzarella will be kind of tough and squeaky, so a light touch is good.

5. When curd is ready, fold into a ball and squeeze the ends together.

6. Put cheese in an ice bath and start over with the next handful of curd

7. Call me and tell me how it is

Easy peasy.