Dairy

While ricotta is perhaps most famous as a lasagna filling, it really shines at breakfast where its creamy texture and not too tangy flavor are a perfect match with many breakfast classics. My favorite way to eat it is to slather it on toast made with a rustic bread and drizzled with a few threads of bitter Sicilian honey. Add some fresh or dried fruit and a few almonds and you have a perfect way to start the day. Read on for a few more ways to use ricotta as an essential breakfast ingredient.

I’m in a sublet situation, so my stand mixer and hand mixer are packed away in storage for a little while. This means that whenever I need egg whites or cream beaten stiff, I have to do it by hand. It’s really not that hard and doesn’t take as long as most people think. Read on for a few tips on how to whisk by hand.There are a lot of reasons why you may want to whisk by hand besides lack of equipment.

Browned butter is one of my all-time favorite flavors of fall cooking. I could eat any one of these recipes without being asked twice, and then lick the plate clean. Dangerously for me, and probably you, Christina Tosi of Momofuku Milk Bar has just made the process of browning butter a whole lot easier.I honed in immediately on this gem of a tip in Tosi’s new cookbook Momofuku Milk Bar. Here is a lady who knows when to put in the time and when to cut corners for the sake of efficiency.

This box of pencils packs a cheesy punch! Leave it to a German ad agency to think up this cute — and practical! — way to transport and serve Parmesan cheese. But are they coming to the United States anytime soon?Disguised as run-of-the-mill over-sized pencils, the “leads” of these pencils are actually flavored Parmesan cheese. Each set comes with a sharpener, allowing one to shave truffle, chili, and pesto flavored Parmesan right from the pencils.

Q: My husband is having a few of his friends over for a whiskey tasting. I want to make a cheese tray to go with the various whiskeys they will be sampling but I don’t know where to start. The Cheesemonger’s recent post regarding Kerrygold Aged Cheddar was a help, but is only one cheese and I’ll need more than that for my tray!I don’t know the exact whiskeys they will be sampling, as it’s BYOW, but they all will be “Highland Scotch Whiskeys.

It’s not sour cream. It isn’t whipping cream. It doesn’t quite seem to be cream cheese. But it’s all over TV ads and prominently displayed in the grocery cooler, coupons waving atop smartly-colored tubs. What the h-e-double-hockey-sticks is “cooking creme”? I first saw an ad for cooking creme while I was on the elliptical machine at the gym, and I almost lost my stride trying to figure out what this new “creme” was.

Q: I have been making my own yogurt for a while now and love it. I recently have been straining the finished yogurt through a cheesecloth for an extra thick finish. Now I have all this wonderful whey as a side product.What can I do with it? I have heard of soaking grains in it, but I’m gluten-free. I have also used it for lacto-fermentation, but it’s winter and don’t have fresh veggies available. What are some other uses?

Something that comes up again and again in our conversations about homemade yogurt is how to make it thickerFirst off, take a look at the kind of milk you’re using. While you can technically make yogurt with whole, 2%, or non-fat milk, a higher fat content will definitely give you a thicker, creamier yogurt. Also, avoid milk that has been Ultra High-Temperature pasteurized (UHT). This should be indicated on the label.

Yesterday we shared some ideas for marinated goat cheeseSlicing through soft, creamy goat cheese can get rather messy. Sometimes this doesn’t matter, but when your presentation requires a clean cut, all you need is a piece of dental floss. Wrap the floss around your fingers, hold it taught, and pull it downward through the cheese. Ta-da! We do, of course, suggest using unflavored floss unless you like your chèvre with a hint of mint.

We heard about a new kind of custard the other day. It’s called a posset, made from just cream, sugar, and whatever flavorings you might like. And it turns out that it’s not at all new! In fact, it’s one of the oldest versions of custard around. New or old, this sounds like the perfect dessert for us.We actually found two different versions of the posset. One version is a drink of hot milk curdled with wine or beer, served with spices and sometimes enriched with egg.

Infusing flavor into cream or whole milk is one of the easiest ways to get a little extra flavor into a cake, custard, or any other dessert that uses even a little dairy. Want a note of cinnamon in your cupcakes? Or lavender in your crème brûlée? Here’s how!Extracts and dry spices can obviously be used to add flavor as well, but dairy has a few other advantages. Dairy picks up flavors exceedingly well, making them somehow smoother and more subtle.

Every so often, we come across a recipe that asks us to scald the milk before adding it to whatever custard or bread recipe we happen to be making. This always seems like an annoying extra step without an obvious function in the recipe, so we started wondering: is it really necessary?

It’s happened to all of us at least once. We’re heating milk for a sauce, or oatmeal, or any number of things, but there are just a few bubbles around the edge. We turn away for just a minute to do something else, and the next thing we know, there’s steamy, sputtering milk cascading over our stove top. What gives?!Here’s what’s happening in that little pot:As milk heats, the water in its structure starts evaporating from the surface.

When we first got curious about this question after making Jamie Oliver’s chicken-in-milk recipe, we had no idea how complicated the answer would turn out to be. It definitely requires a trip back to high school chemistry, so put on your lab goggles and bear with us while we figure this one out!The first thing to realize is that milk is actually made up of a lot of different components, the main ones being protein, fat, and water.

Brown butter is one of those magical secret ingredients that just seems to enhance the flavor of just about anything – sweet or savory. It has a rich nutty taste and the aroma is out of this world. Even better, it’s a snap to make…To make brown butter (also called beurre noisette), simply start melting butter over medium heat. Use a pan with a light-colored bottom so you can keep track of the color. Swirl the pan occasionally to be sure the butter is cooking evenly.

Last week in our post about Straus Family Creamery, a reader commented: ok, i recently purchased the straus milk and was wondering what you’re suppose to do with the cream top? do you put it over something, throw it out or leave it in there? When milk is not homogenized, the cream in it rises to the top. This is a natural occurrence, and was more common in the old days.

Our first reaction to seeing this bag of ready-to-eat, hard-boiled eggs in the grocery store was along the lines of, “That’s ridiculous.” In fact, that’s exactly what our husband said when we put them in our basket.Why did we buy them when we are perfectly capable of hard-boiling our own? Because to give you a full report, we needed to slice and taste a few. Could this new convenience product have a place in our kitchen?The short answer is no.