I can’t believe what I have accomplished! It’s so . . . Ukrainian (to me, anyway). I feel as though another “mystery” of this culture has been unearthed to me.
We get a liter of raw goat’s milk almost daily. It costs less than a dollar. But we are no where near able to drink a liter a day! So . . . I started wondering if I could make some homemade butter. After consulting with Vitaliy, I’ve learned to make butter, sour cream, soft cheese (tvorog–very popular here), and whey (used as the milk subsitute in pancake, blini, crepe, etc. recipes–and also great for skin and hair!)
I didn’t get a picture of the separation process, so I’ll just tell you about it. It starts with a glass 3-liter jar full of goat milk. It sits for a day or two at room temperature and separates. The bottom part is a thin, yellowish liquid, and the top half is heavy cream. This top cream is actually two separate creams. The thin top layer, visibly different, is scraped off to be sour cream, or if shaken, it turns into butter. What’s left (the majority of the cream) is put in cheese cloth, pressed for a few hours to get the whey out, and soft cheese is left.
Here is my jar of butter:
Here’s some sour cream:
Here’s some whey:
Here’s the soft cheese (tvorog); it’s actually very white:
So I did another very Ukrainain thing–I made ‘nalisniki.’ That is, using the whey, i made up some blini (like slightly thick crepes):
Then i put tvarog in the blini (I made two types–one batch of tvarog i mixed with a little sugar, the other batch I mixed with some salt), rolled them up, put them all in the frying pan with butter (thank you, goat’s milk again), fried them up a bit, and served some warm to Vitaliy with sour cream (thank you, g.m., again) on top .
This is all SO UKRAINIAN! Wow, I’m feeling domestic, diligent, productive, thrifty, and like I have a garden–not really a garden, just able to make my own foods 🙂
It looks pretty good to me. I haven’t had crepes in a while, and certainly not homemade ones.
Does the goat milk – cheese and butter taste much different that that from cows?
yes, it does have a different taste from storebought, cow milk products. it’s also white as opposed to yellow. another popular thing to do is eat the tvarog in a bowl with some berries or sweet/runny-type fruit on top. I think I will go eat that 🙂
wow anne, i am VERY impressed! molodetz!
Today i mixed the remaining tvarog with salt, garlic, dill and green onion (can’t remember what we call that in the States . . . starts with an ‘s’ i think) and spread it thickly on bread. Yum!
Oh how cool. Isn’t that feeling awesome? I remember when I canned my first batch of vegetables from the garden last year, and was so amazed. And boy, was it good in the middle of winter.
My Oma just looked at me askance, like “of course”. It’s so everyday for her, and it’s foreign territory to most Americans or most young women. We had a good laugh, and a good discussion…
so true, joy! all my ukrainian friends think it’s funny that i consider this an accomplishment 🙂 or they’re like, so . . . what?
i’m dreaming of having a garden one day, too 🙂
How cool!
(I miss Ukraine.)