Directions for Cookery, in its Various BranchesLeslie, Eliza
General
Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches
Leslie, Eliza
Cooking, American
After they begin to dry, (or ripen, as it is called,) it is the custom
in some dairy-farms, to place the cheeses in the haystack, and keep
them there among the hay for five or six weeks. This is said greatly to
improve their consistence and flavour. Cheeses are sometimes ripened by
putting them every day in fresh grass.
SAGE CHEESE.
Take some of the young top leaves of the sage plant, and pound them in
a mortar till you have extracted the juice. Put the juice into a bowl,
wipe out the mortar, put in some spinach leaves, and pound them till
you have an equal quantity of spinach juice. Mix the two juices
together, and stir them into the warm milk immediately after you have
put in the rennet. You may use sage juice alone; but the spinach will
greatly improve the colour; besides correcting the bitterness of the
sage.
STILTON CHEESE.
Having strained the morning’s milk, and skimmed the cream from the milk
of the preceding evening, mix the cream and the new milk together while
the latter is quite warm, and stir in the rennet-water. When the curd
has formed, you must not break it up, (as is done with other cheese,)
but take it out all at once with a wooden skimming dish, and place it
on a sieve to drain gradually. While it is draining, keep pressing it
gently till it becomes firm and dry. Then lay a clean cloth at the
bottom of a wooden cheese-hoop or mould, which should have a few small
holes bored in the bottom. The cloth must be large enough for the end
to turn over the top again, after the curd is put in. Place it in the
press for two hours; turn it, (putting a clean cloth under it,) and
press it again for six or eight hours. Then turn it again, rub the
cheese all over with salt, and return it to the press for fourteen
hours. Should the edges of the cheese project, they must be pared off.
When you take it finally out of the press, bind it round tightly with a
cloth, (which must be changed every day when you turn the cheese,) and
set it on a shelf or board. Continue the cloths till the cheese is firm
enough to support itself; rubbing or brushing the outside every day
when you turn it. After the cloths are left off, continue to brush the
cheese every day for two or three months; during which time it may be
improved by keeping it covered all round, under and over, with grass,
which must be renewed every day, and gathered when quite dry after the
dew is off. Keep the cheese and the grass between two large plates.
A Stilton cheese is generally made of a small size, seldom larger in
circumference than a dinner plate, and about four or five inches thick.
They are usually put up for keeping, in cases of sheet lead, fitting
them exactly. There is no cheese superior to them in richness and
mildness.
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