I know it’s summertime when I start to see pattypans popping up at the farmers’ markets.  And when they do, I snap them up.  The texture and flavour of this squash is far superior to any other and they go brilliantly with lemon and garlic.  Why they’re not as popular as other summer squashes are, I’ll never know!

The pattypan (scallopini, button squash, pâtisson) is a round and flat variety of summer squash similar in texture to a zucchini and, like the zucchini, it is best when picked young and no larger than 3 to 4 inches in diameter.  Its texture is firm while its flavour is fresh, crisp and slightly peppery.  These squashes fry and grill very well!

Like the potato, squashes are a food of the new world with archaeological evidence suggesting it was cultivated in Central America as early as 8,000 to 10,000 years ago.  Historically, squash was known as one of the “three sisters” in Native American crop cultivation, the other two sisters being corn and beans.

For this particular post I decided to post a french preparation for the pattypan, and my personal favourite:  Grilled pattypans with garlic and lemon.  So simple and so tasty!

Preparation:

In a frying pan add all ingredients for the sauce and heat on low until the garlic has been lightly browned.  Remove and prepare the squash.

Slice each pattypan into 1/2″ thick slabs and sear on both sides in cooking oil in a pan until they’re lightly golden. Remove and grill each slab for one minute on each side or until grill markings are visible.  Stack 3 or 4 slabs and drizzle with the garlic, lemon and oil sauce.  Serve and enjoy!

Bon appetit!  Good eating to you…

The potato dates as far back as 500 BC to Peru and Chile where the Incas grew and cultivated them in the Andes Mountains.  Brought back to Spain on the ships following the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire, the potato made its European debut in the mid 1500s.  English explorers then introduced it into English, Scottish and Irish environs where local cultivation eventually led to it becoming a staple crop. In fact, it was Sir Walter Raleigh who first brought the potato to Ireland and planted them at his estate in Youghal, near Cork.  Unfortunately those who consumed the plant ate the poisonous leaves, not the tuber itself, causing illness and the plant to become banned for a spell on the island.

The rest of Europe would wait until the late 1700s before the potato gained prominence there but not before it was shunned for many years as a food for the poor and feared for its poisonous properties.  And in perhaps its darkest hour, an airborne fungus called phytophthora infestans was brought back on the ships from North America infecting potato plants and eventually caused the Irish Potato Famine. In the mid 1840s, the blight caused potato crops in Ireland to become diseased and subsequently left a nation dependent on the crop to starve.  As a result, approximately one million people died and another one million left the country causing the greatest diaspora in Irish history and reducing the population at the time by approximately 25 percent.

Today, the humble potato is far less threatening and plays as much a role as corn does in our diets:  It’s ubiquitous, plentiful and perhaps even taken for granted.  But why don’t we appreciate it more or give it centre stage it in the meals we make?  I asked myself that very question this week after preparing and tasting the recipe below which was sent to me from Academia Barilla.

What caught my eye with this recipe was the simplicity of it and the fact that it wasn’t over-done or drenched in mayonnaise like most potato-based salads are in North America.  I was also fortunate enough to get my hands on a bottle of Academia Barilla Monti Iblei DOP Extra Virgin Olive Oil so I could actually make the recipe with all exact ingredients called for.

Octopus and Potato Salad – Academia Barilla

Preparation:

Boil the octopus in salted water and onion for about 1/2 hour or until tender.  Take the skin off and cut in small pieces.

Meanwhile cube the potatoes, boil in salted water.

Combine with octopus, season with salt, pepper, chopped chives, lemon juice, oil.

Serve at room temperature.

** I boiled the cubed potatoes for exactly 8 minutes cooking them fully but keeping them firm.

**I used ¼ tsp of sea salt and 2 tbsp of fresh, diced black olives in the dressing.

The end result was nothing short of delightful: An aesthetically pleasing, fresh dish exuding the flavours of summer which, for me, are synonymous with the sea and fresh vegetables.  What pleased me the most about this recipe was that it allowed for the subtle and natural flavours of the potatoes and octopus to come through.  The chives, olives and white wine vinegar provided subtle hints of their presence in the dressing while the olive oil did most of the work.

On its own, Academia Barilla’s Monti Iblei DOP Extra Virgin Olive Oil boasts a fresh, airy and slightly bitter flavor with peppery undertones that take a rather pleasant hold in the back of the throat while tasting it. Within the dressing itself the olive oil gave the recipe just what it needed to open up and enhance the flavours of the octopus and potato without drowning or masking them.  The subtle seawater flavour of the octopus paired with earthiness of the potatoes created a flavour combination that was near perfect and the olive oil rounded it all off very nicely indeed. This recipe demonstrated exactly what I had hoped it would: The potato is not the dull filler that we chalk it up to be and subtlety is key when dressing a potato dish.  Bellissima!

Buon appetito!

Please feel free to leave comments or suggestions about this recipe below.

I decided to start this food blog a few months ago as I wanted to document and compile my favourite ‘modern’ recipes from my favourite part of the world whilst also taking on some new culinary challenges such as revisiting and recreating ancient recipes that come from archaeological record in the regions and learning about and experimenting with food preparation from the dawn of classical civilization and seeing how it fares in our current day and age.  What this site will present to the reader with each post is a brief history of a specific Mediterranean repast, its origins, and a recipe for how to prepare it in our own homes today.

I’ve spent the past few months preparing the site itself, developing formats for the presentation and writing, taking photographs, and doing a lot of cooking and research on food preparation, evolving food trends, and food history in this part of the world.  I’m only just getting started, which is why you’re only seeing a handful of recipes thus far.  As I feature each country and a recipe from it, I’ll add it to the site menu above.  This site, and its content, will hold a lot in store, I assure you!  I plan to present some tried, tested and tasty recipes that will encourage us all to get to the root of Mediterranean cooking, the food-culture of each country, the ingredients, presentation styles, and delightful fresh flavours that each meal provides.

I look forward to posting more, cooking more, learning more and I hope you’ll pop in here once in a while to see what’s on the menu!

Coming up this month is a review of La Scuola Grande and a cooking class I attended in May at Eataly in New York City.

If you wish to stay tuned-in you can subscribe to Tavola Mediterranea updates from the site itself and receive email notifications or you can like/follow our activities, articles and updates here at:  Tavola Mediterranea on Facebook or at Tavola Mediterranea on Twitter.

Thank you for popping by and Buon Appetito!

Farrell Spence

Hummus is the quintessential summer snack or dip that goes brilliantly with bread, crackers, vegetables, salads and sandwiches.  If you don’t know what hummus is, you haven’t lived yet. But don’t worry! Life’s about to get a whole lot better once you add this recipe to your repertoire.

Hummus is an Arabic word that means “Chick Peas”.  When said chick peas are combined with lemon, garlic, olive oil, tahini and other spices you have a levantine dip that is historically very ancient yet also very popular on the modern table today.

The chick pea had been used as a human food item by hunter-gatherers for tens of thousands of years and was then cultivated around 7,000 years ago in the Middle East.  It was one of the earliest crops cultivated in Mesopotamia and was a common street dish in ancient Rome.  Supposedly the Roman philosopher, Cicero, was named after an ancestor who had a wart on his nose shaped like a chick pea. The word for chick pea in Latin is Cicer arietinum.  Poor Cicero.

Anyways!  Back to hummus.  What I absolutely love about hummus is that it’s a plant-based food that’s safe for the vegans and vegetarians, but it’s far from boring!  It packs such a punch and is so pleasing to eat.  When made correctly it should be a thick and creamy consistency with enough hints of lemon and garlic to make you want to finish off the entire bowl in one sitting.

For this post I have decided to feature an Israeli hummus served with traditional laffa bread.  Laffa bread is a middle eastern leavened flat-bread that is a very popular street food in Israel.  The recipe is so simple you can memorize it.  Laffa is prepared by frying the dough in a pan after it has been left to rise. The end result is a wonderful, blistered, chewy flat-bread that goes perfectly with fresh hummus.

Israeli Hummus and Laffa Bread

Prepare the laffa bread first by proofing the yeast in the warm water.  Do so by adding the oil, sugar and yeast to the warm water and leave it sit for 10 minutes.  If a light beer-like foam starts to appear on the surface you know you’re good to go…  The yeast is alive!

Add the flour and salt to the water and yeast and slowly roll it all together with your hands.  Alternatively you can be cheeky and use a bread-maker on the dough setting.  Once the dough is mixed well, cover it and let it rise for 1 to 1.5 hours until it doubles in size.  While it is rising, prepare the hummus.

Combine the cooked chick peas and all other ingredients for the hummus in a food processor and blend until it’s smooth and creamy.  Scoop it out into a serving dish and cover it while waiting for the bread to finish rising.

Okay! Back to the laffa bread.  Once it has doubled in size cut the dough into six equal pieces. *Important*  Flour your rolling surface well and keep a bowl of flour on the counter to dust your palms with.  The dough will be very soft and sticky. Heat a frying pan to just over medium and add enough oil into the bottom to lubricate the surface well. Roll your first section of dough into a flat circle on the floured surface.  Once the pan is hot, place the rolled dough into the pan.  It should puff up and blister almost immediately.  Keep a set of tongs handy to lift and check the bottom.  It should take about 1.5 minutes to brown the bottom.  Flip the bread and fry the other side for approximately one minute or until the blisters start to brown.  Repeat with each section of the dough until you have six fresh, warm pieces of laffa bread. Oil the pan as often as needed to keep the surface well lubricated.

Hummus: Uncover and serve. Optional: Drizzle it with a tablespoon of olive oil and dust it with sumac to give it a splash of colour and a stronger flavour.

Laffa Bread: Serve as is or cut each flat-bread into strips for dipping into the hummus.

Be’te-avon!  Good eating to you…

Please feel free to comment about this recipe below.

I myself enjoy making cheese from scratch, I know I don’t have to make it myself but I try to spend the time whenever I can as the outcome is generally very rewarding.  When I’ve searched for recipes online, however, I found that some recipes and cheese-making processes in the home looked rather clinical and complicated. Thermometers, rubber gloves, rennet tablets…  Too complicated!  I don’t think our foremothers and forefathers made cheese-making that complicated so I don’t intend to either.  Unlike making your own Ricotta or Chèvre, however, this is a firmer cheese that’s going to take a bit more work but it’s worth it! And I assure you that the only thing hard about making this recipe is carrying the bottles of milk up the stairs!

Homemade Cypriot Halloumi

Boil the milk on high while whisking until the milk flares up. Don’t walk away and chat on the phone or you’ll burn the milk. Keep stirring. Once the milk froths turn the element off and squeeze in the juice of 2 lemons. Stir and leave the milk stand for 15 minutes until the milk curdles and whey separates. Line a sieve with cheesecloth and pour the curds into it straining off the whey. Leave the curds stand for one hour. Once most of the whey has drained tie the cheese cloth tight around the curds and give it a light squeeze to get rid of any excess whey. Use a metal clip or tie a strong knot with the edges of the cloth snug around the curds to prepare it for boiling. Cool and keep the whey on the side to use as brine when refrigerating the finished cheese.

Heat a pot of boiling water now with enough volume to cover the cheese, add in 2 tsp of salt and once it boils reduce to low (light rolling boil) and drop the tied cheese into the boiling water. Leave it simmer in the water for one hour turning it over at the half hour mark. Once an hour passes remove and leave it to cool in a sieve. Cut or untie the cheese cloth and place the cheese into a bowl. Let it cool to room temperature then cover and place it in the fridge over night. You’re going to end up with about 400 grams of cheese and after leaving it overnight in the fridge it should be quite firm to the touch in the morning.

Serving

Prepare side salad dishes with a handful of leafy greens, some sprigs of rocket and a sprig of mint.  Lay a few pieces of halloumi on each dish with greens.  Blend the ingredients for the mint vinaigrette in a food processor and dress the cheese and greens with 1 tbsp of the vinaigrette each or enjoy it’s natural flavours on its own sans vinaigrette. Store the remaining cheese in the fridge in a covered container in the whey that was drained off during the curdling process. Add a teaspoon of salt to the whey before using it to store the finished cheese.

Kali Orexi!  Good eating to you…

This incredibly pleasing variety of pasta originated in Puglia in the south of Italy on the Adriatic coast (although some would argue it originated in France during the middle-ages) and is still being made (painstakingly) by hand by many of the traditionalists in the region of Puglia to this day.  Most of us pasta-snobs outside of Italy can find Orecchiette in specialty Italian food shops or in other ethnic grocery stores who stock import foods.  You certainly won’t find Orecchiette at the Tesco or Safeway, so don’t go hunting for it there.

One of the qualities I love about Orecchiette is the texture and size.  If made correctly, and boiled for the right amount of time, you’ll end up with a lovely, al dente, bite-size pasta morcel that will go brilliantly with a variety of sauces.  After making this batch of Orecchiette a friend of mine from Puglia suggested I dress it with a sauce composed of rapini (rabe), garlic, white wine, olive oil, and pecorino cheese.  This sauce recipe will come later.  But first, let’s step into the shoes of  ‘le nonne pugliese’ and learn how to make some Orecchiette, shall we?  It’s a labour of love but the end-result is so rewarding.

Orecchiette Pugliesi

Preparation:

The first tool you’re going to need is a good ol’ heavy-duty hand-crank pasta roller, the kind you attach to your counter with a vice.  Mine is a Marcato Atlas Pasta Roller and Cutter.  You can find them in any good culinary supply shop for about $50-$75 depending on where you live.

Make your dough on the counter (by hand) or in a food processor. Once the dough has been made and formed into a nice tight wad, cut the dough into four pieces and place it in a mixing bowl with a damp rag or saran-wrap over top to keep it moist.  Take a quarter-section of the dough and begin to roll it.  Start at level 1 (thick) on the roller and roll the dough as evenly as possible.  Level by level (1 to 6) you’ll turn that wad into a nice strip of dough that is quite thin.  It should be fairly dry as well and won’t stick to any surface. Once the dough has been thinned on level 6 it’s time to lay it on a floured cutting board and begin making the orecchiette.

The next tool you’ll require is a cappelletti stamp but you won’t find anything like this outside of Italy nor will you find one in New York City, I discovered recently. So what I did was walk up to my local culinary supply shop and a buy a pastry nozzle (for a piping-bag) that has the same circumference as a cappelletti stamp on the larger end of approximately ¾”.

As you’re punching out each circle, drop it into your palm and make a convex shape with it by gently pushing your little finger into the centre of it to create an indentation.  Once you’ve formed an orecchietta place it on parchment paper or a floured surface or sheet to dry.  You should end up with approximately 100 orecchiette when you’re done.  It’ll take about an hour to make the pasta so roll your sleeves up and put some tunes on!

Boil for 12 to 13 minutes for perfect texture.

Buon Appetito! Good eating to you…

Please feel free to leave comments or suggestions about this recipe below.

Historically, tagine cooking has been influenced and enhanced throughout history in the North African region by the Berbers, the Moors, Arab invasions, The Ottoman Empire, and more.

I decided to make a traditional Moroccan kefta (meatballs) and tomato sauce recipe for my first tagine, and boy did it please. Tangy, spicy flavours and gorgeous texture features prominently in this recipe. Let’s make it shall we?

Moroccan Kefta Tagine.

This recipe will make approximately 16 meat-balls.  I am using a small tagine pot, approximately 9″ in diameter so I’ll have half leftover to freeze or make another order with.

Preheat the oven to 400 F / 200 C / Gas Mark 6.

Kefte (Meatballs):

Mix all the ingredients for the kefte from the recipe-card sidebar on the right in a food processor except the ground beef.  Pour the mixed ingredients over the ground beef in a mixing bowl and mix it by hand.  Set aside and make the sauce.

Sauce: 

Mix all of the ingredients listed for the sauce from the recipe-card sidebar on the right in a food processor until chunky.  Let stand.

Preparation:

Using some flour in the palm of your hand, roll 7 to 8 meatballs and place them into the tagine pot base approximately 1 cm apart.  Pour the sauce straight from the food processor onto the meatballs and spread it evenly over and around them.  I did not reduce the sauce at all beforehand as I find it reduces well in the cooking process in the tagine pot.

Cover and bake for one hour and serve with a side of coucous or bulgur wheat.

Bon appetit! Good eating to you…

Please feel free to leave comments or suggestions about this recipe below.

In the modern era we find lentils to be present and popular in middle eastern and Indian cooking as well as in western vegan and vegetarian cuisine.  But does anyone, anywhere, really enjoy eating them at all?!  Why do we buy this boring legume and cook it to a pulpy mush that never seems to quite please the palate?  During my vegetarian years I used to struggle a fair bit with cooking lentils and eventually set them aside as they were more punishment than pleasure for someone trying to create palatable vegetarian meals.  Years later, and back on the meat, I find myself confronted again with presenting a lentil recipe for Tavola Mediterranea. One cannot write about, and cook, Mediterranean cuisine and avoid the lowly lentil.  

For this post I have decided to turn to a pro and use a recipe from www.cliffordawright.com.  Clifford A Wright won the James Beard/KitchenAid Cookbook of the Year award and the James Beard Award for the Best Writing on Food in 2000 for his book  ”A Mediterranean Feast” which was also a finalist for the IACP Cookbook of the Year award.  I have recently purchased this book and am looking forward to trying out more of his recipes here on Tavola Mediterranea.

One reason I wanted to feature this recipe is that I have not yet dabbled in Egyptian cuisine.  I also wanted to find a lentil recipe, from a Mediterranean country, that would entice myself and other foodies to cook more with the little legumes.  I wanted to find a recipe that would pack a punch and change the way that I feel about using lentils in my meals.  It appears that I hit a culinary jackpot when I found that very recipe in Clifford A Wright’s “A Mediterranean Feast”.  ”Lentil Salad in Olive Oil with Egyptian Spices” forever changed my opinion of lentils and I make this recipe a few times a month now.  The key is boiling the lentils al dente and then dressing it with the spiced garlic and olive oil sauce at room temperature after boiling.  I actually found Fenugreek at a local Mediterranean grocery so I am able to make this recipe exactly as written with all ingredients called for.  If you have trouble finding this spice, try local specialty food markets that specialize in middle-eastern, Indian or African import foods.

Now, are you ready to change your opinion of lentils forever?  If so, I hope you have your socks pulled on tight, because this recipe is going to knock them clean off…

Lentil Salad in Olive Oil with Egyptian Spices (Adapted from Clifford A. Wright).

Here’s my preparation process in 3 easy steps:

1. Rinse and place the lentils in a medium-size saucepan of lightly salted cold water and bring to a boil. Cook until al dente, 25 minutes from the time you turned the heat on.  Important: Set your timer from the time you turned the element on, not from the boiling point!

While the lentils are boiling:

2. In a small saucepan, heat 3 tablespoons of olive oil over medium/low heat with the garlic, cumin, coriander, cardamom, and fenugreek.  As the garlic begins to sizzle and brown remove from the burner and set aside. Dice the parsley in food processor or on a cutting board.

3. After 25 minutes, take the lentils off the element and drain them in a sieve. Toss with the garlic, spices and olive oil. Add the fresh diced parsley and mix into the lentils while they’re still warm. Arrange on a serving dish drizzling another 1 tablespoon of olive oil over the top. Serve at room temperature.

Bil hana wish shifa’! Good eating to you…

Please feel free to leave comments or suggestions about this recipe below.

More commonly, and in the  modern day, a galette is a large pastry that can contain anything from fruit and berries to meats, cheeses and vegetables.  Galettes can be prepared as a sweet or savoury pastry making it a very versatile option for both lunch and dinner, as well as an appetizer or dessert course.  Perhaps the most unique and charming aspect of the galette is that the edges of the crust are usually folded in,  or a series of overlapping pleats are created on the crust edge, to form a lip that overhangs the basin.  Aesthetically this is something that I find to be very pleasing and unique.

I recently purchased my very first mandolin in the Bowery in New York City last month.  Now I’m sure you’re thinking “What does a mandolin have to do with making a galette?”  Well, this is not the kind of mandolin you’re thinking of and I certainly won’t be singing songs, strumming away on it in the kitchen unless I want to see my fingers removed knuckle by knuckle.  This type of mandolin is an incredibly sharp and very efficient kitchen tool that allows you to finely slice and julienne vegetables and fruit.  Leave your Henckel out of this because the precision and consistency a mandolin gives you when you want to slice finely and evenly is a joy to behold.

I decided to break in my new mandolin by making the galette recipe below.  *Important*  If you too are going to use a mandolin, remember to read the instructions or watch a YouTube video first (as I did) and learn how to use the finger guard!  And if you’re drinking wine and cooking at the same time, be sure to pay extra attention while you’re slicing.

 
 
 
Zucchini and Aubergine (Eggplant) Galette with Boursin.

Preheat oven to 400 F, 200 C, Gas Mark 6.

Preparation:

Prepare the pastry dough by cutting the butter and milk into the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl or in a food processor.  Do not heat or warm the butter, cut it into the flour mixture and let it blend and warm as you go.  Once the dough is formed, cut it in half and wrap each piece in plastic wrap or place into a ziplock bag.  Set aside in the fridge for 30 minutes and begin preparation of filling and sauce.

To prepare the filling use a mandolin (or a cutting tool of your choice) to slice the aubergine, zucchini and onions into fine circular slices.  Then stack and slice the aubergine, zucchini and onion into halves so you have two stacks of half-moon shaped slices for each ingredient.  Fast-fry the onions in oil for about one minute until they’re translucent and then set aside.

Return now to your pastry dough by rolling each half out as circular as possible and placing them each into pie-plates.  Create a lip around the upper edge by either rolling the edge in and pinching it as you go.  You want to create a small shelf or an overhang that will curl over the filling once it goes in.  Once this has been done place the empty shells in the oven for 5 to 7 minutes until the bottom of the shell is lightly baked. *Important*  If you do not prebake the shell for a few minutes before adding the filling you could end up losing the filling through the bottom when preparing to serve it.  While the shells are being prebaked, prepare your sauce.

Prepare the sauce by combining all sauce ingredients in a food-processor and blending on medium for one minute until the garlic is minced and the mixture is smooth and creamy.  Set aside.

Prepare the filling working from the outside in and layering an overlapping row of zucchini first.  Then layer a row of aubergine, then onion, and so on.  Repeat layering until you’ve reached the centre. Fill the centre in with some of the smaller pieces of zucchini. Do the same with the second crust. Once each pie has been layered with the filling add half of the sauce mixture to each shell pouring evenly and generously over the filling.

Bake the filled shells for an additional 15 minutes or until crusts are golden brown and the sauce is baked into the filling.  Serve with leafy greens.

Bon appetit! Good eating to you…

Please feel free to leave comments about this recipe below.

Cheese, like breads, has been a staple in the human diet for time immemorial.  Soft and hard varieties as well as mild and incredibly strong and pungent varieties make this food item a versatile and incredibly pleasing meal enhancer that also stands brilliant on it’s own with fruit, bread or jellies, herbs and chutneys.  According to popular theory, the origins of cheese-making has been dated back to the the Middle East, sometime around 7000 BC. It was during this Neolithic period that humans began to move from hunter/gatherer lifestyles and began the practice of farming and keeping livestock.  With this development they discovered that domesticated animals could also be milked and not just used as a source of meat.  In ancient Babylonia, Sumerian art from 3500 BC depicts the milking and curdling of cow’s milk.  And in Egypt, funeral murals from 2000 BC show butter and cheese being made and stored in bags.

By 50 AD, the evidence of cheese making by the Romans was made known in great detail by Columella.  During this time the Romans invented the cheese press to perfect the draining process after the curdling and separation stages of preparation. They also developed the ripening process, discovering various preparation and storing conditions produced cheeses with different flavours.

Fast-forward many millenia later and cheese is still found on our tables and used in our cooking but the preparation of it and how it arrives in it’s delightful form from milk remains a mystery to most consumers.  Surprisingly, it is incredibly easy to make but the amount of milk-fat that goes into making a small portion of cheese gives the consumer an idea as to why it is one of the more ‘expensive’ items we buy at the market.

I myself enjoy making cheese from scratch, I know I don’t have to make it myself but I try to spend the time whenever I can to do this as the outcome is so rewarding.  When I’ve searched for recipes online, however, I found that some recipes and cheese-making processes in the home looked rather clinical and complicated.  Thermometers, rubber gloves, rennet tablets…  Too complicated!  I don’t think our fore-mothers and fore-fathers made cheese-making that complicated so I don’t intend to either.  This is a very simple recipe that is easy and very rewarding.  The only thing hard about making this recipe is carrying the bottles of milk up the stairs!

With this cheese recipe I have decided to focus on a french favourite, chèvre, or goat’s cheese.  It’s brilliant all on it’s own lightly salted or infused with herbs, spices or fruit to ‘dress it up’ a little.

Homemade Chèvre (Goat’s Cheese) Infused with Basil.

Preparation

Pour the goat’s milk, buttermilk and salt into a large pot.  Heat the milk on high whisking constantly during the heating process.  The milk will begin to flare up as it boils, when it foams turn the element off immediately.  Slice two lemons in half (removing seeds) and squeeze the lemon juice into the pot of hot milk.  Almost immediately a separation will occur between the curds and whey.  Little Miss Muffet would be all over this!

Prepare a sieve with cheese-cloth over it and pour the curds and whey into the sieve to strain the whey from the curds.  Let it drain for an hour.   In a food-processor, or by hand, dice up five basil leaves and carefully stir them into the curds in the cheese-cloth.  Tie the cloth off at the top by twisting it and draining as much fluid out of it as possible and place it in the fridge overnight with some weight on it (I use a marble mortar) in the sieve over a bowl to catch any remaining whey.  The next morning you will have a delightful, basil-infused chèvre that you can spread on to french bread, make baked eggs with, or enjoy with some fresh fruit and crostini.

Bon appétit!

Please feel free to leave comments about this recipe below.