spinning into butter

I grew up in a world awash with margarine. I remember dipping my knife into a beige tub of it straight from the refrigerator. With little resistance, I would scoop out a lump and slather it easily onto a whole wheat roll. It melted easily and soaked the bread with its oily yellowness. I didn't think a whole lot about it. It was the nineties, and my parents were into being healthy and exercising. Back then, margarine was part of that.

I can't quite pinpoint the moment my world shifted from margarine as health food to margarine as toxin. It could have been junior year of college when I read Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma and tried to understand trans fats for the first time. Maybe it really sunk in when New York City's Board of Health became the first in the nation to ban the use of artificial trans fats (the kinds in margarine and other hydrogenated oils) at restaurants. I guess it doesn't really matter when it was, but sometime between Y2K and now, my world changed from one where my friends and family cooked and baked with margarine for "health" to one where they use butter without fail.

Still, the mistaken association between butter and health problems pervades television commercials and women's magazines. Multinational corporations continue to produce butter substitutes made with rancid oils, selling products which are actually far more damaging to our health than the lowest-nutrient butters on the market. Soy, corn and cotton can all be used to make the ingredients that comprise a butter substitute, and food-producing corporations have a glut of all three due to monocropping practices.

The thing is, people will only be swayed by marketing for so long. High quality pastured butters become available at more grocery stores every day, and many boutique food stores now regularly carry cultured butter like that of Vermont Butter and Cheese Company. Once you taste a good cultured butter slathered on fresh bread, you're transported to a world where butter has taste and where it needs some good sea salt, a world where have to ask yourself, "How was I passing this up?".

This post is in the spirit of putting a stop to the passing up of butter. That is my mission, and I hope you'll accept it. I wanted to make butter because I came across this article while internet browsing during lunch at work, and butter making sounded to me both daunting and delicious. Subsequent Googling yielded the unanimous bloggers' consensus that homemade butter is far superior to even that of Vermont Butter and Cheese. I had to know.

And so Mary and I made butter. We bought our cream and yogurt fresh from the farmers' market, we fermented overnight, we cooled the cream in the fridge. We shook a jar for half an hour until the butter separated from the buttermilk, and (Eureka!) we were victorious.

Everyone else on the interweb was right: It's easy to make butter. It tastes good. Oh, does it taste good. And it's good for you. Really, really good. As I understand it, butter made from the milk of cows that have been eating grass (or "pastured") in the fall and spring is high in both Vitamins A and D. It is high in both selenium and cholesterol, protecting against cancer and heart disease. If you have questions about  more of the specific health benefits of butter, check out this Weston A. Price Foundation article, "Why Butter Is Better". It will also answer some questions if you scratched your head when I said that cholesterol helps to protect against heart disease. Culturing the butter increases its enzyme content and makes it easier to digest. It also makes it taste even more incredible.



Cultured Butter
Adapted from The Atlantic


1 pint of heavy cream (not ultra-pasteurized; that won't become butter)
3 Tbs. plain yogurt with live cultures
A pinch or two of good sea salt to taste

*Note: Do not make butter on a hot day, as the butter will not separate from the buttermilk properly. I made it on a day that was about 70 degrees, and everything went fine, as I chilled the cream before shaking it.

Pour heavy cream into a mixing bowl and add the yogurt. Stir to mix, cover with a towel, and leave at room temperature for 12 to 24 hours, until the cream has thickened slightly and developed a slightly tangy taste.

Pour cream into a large jar with a lid that closes tightly, and place in the refrigerator for an hour or two. The cream should cool to between 60 and 66 degrees Fahrenheit. Once it has cooled, you can separate the butter from the buttermilk in one of three ways. You can pour it into a food processor and process it for 5 to 6 minutes until the butter separates from the buttermilk. The butter will look clumpy and yellow, and the buttermilk will be a translucent white. You can also mix it with a stand mixer. Just be sure to cover it well so the cream doesn't splash you and your entire kitchen. You can also do it the fun way and work up a sweat like I did. Shake it vigorously in a jar until it separates, about 30 minutes. I recommend finding yourself a shaking buddy and alternating every five minutes.

One the butter has separated from the buttermilk, strain the clump of butter in a colander and reserve the buttermilk for use in another recipe. Place the butter in a large bowl of ice water, and work to buttermilk out of it with your hands. The buttermilk will make the water cloudy. Strain the butter out of that and put it in a new bowl of ice water, repeating this squeezing process until the water stays clear, to to three times. Remove the butter and pat it gently with a towel to remove water droplets on its exterior. Work a couple of pinches of good salt into it with your hands (if you want salted butter). Transfer the butter to a ramekin or small bowl and cover tightly. It will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator, or several months in the freezer.

-Kylie

my baby mama

Did I tell you yet? I adopted a baby from Adriana. No; not that kind of baby. Don't go all bonkers on me. I have some serious respect for people who have children in this city. No, my baby is of the yeasty variety, and her name? Kombucha.

In my opinion, Jennifer Adler says it best when she calls Kombucha the "soft drink for the 21st Century". It's a beverage created by fermenting prepared tea, a bit of sugar, and a colony of bacteria for about a week. Because I consider myself much better at making and drinking kombucha than explaining how it works, I'm just going to refer you to the link above so that Jennifer can explain it all to you.

Here's what I can tell you, though. Kombucha is an adventure. The first time you taste it, you'll be excited and maybe a little scared. You'll be like a curious cat, investigating the sensory situation with your palate-whiskers. Your first kombucha experience might be with GT Kombucha, bottled and readily available at Whole Foods, Garden of Eden, or your local coop. If that's the case, I highly recommend the mango flavor, which incorporates an ounce or so of juice into a big bottle of the tonic. Or your first taste might be at a friend's house, somebody adventurous and earthy who is a seasoned explorer of all things fermented. Whatever your introduction, soak up the experience. Try it more than once. Why? Because when we deal with fermentation, we're dealing with the natural world, incorporating variables like terroir and weather and light, things that will affect the taste and texture of the finished product.

I'm lucky enough to have an adventuring friend of my own who acquired a culture that I was able to adopt. I smuggled this baby in my carry-on luggage back from Chicago (please don't tell JFK Airport), and she made it back unscathed. I proceeded to brew my tea and sugar and float her on top of it all, making sure to cover the whole batch with a towel to keep bugs and debris away. I then waited impatiently for a week to try my homemade brew.

I'll admit that my baby (now considered a mother because she was birthing a new baby as she fermented) didn't produce as fizzy a brew as I had been hoping. I've now discovered that to get more fizz, you must place your brewed kombucha in an airtight bottle or jar and leave it out at room temperature for a week or so longer. You can also add herbs or roots to the jar for flavor. When you like the taste and texture and decide your kombucha is ready to drink, put it in the refrigerator. It will keep for quite a while, though it usually gets more vinegary as time progresses. I like to float frozen berries in glasses of my kombucha when I'm ready to drink it.

I highly recommend that you try making kombucha, or at least buy it and give it a taste. Its bacteria helps your body to extract and use the nutrients in the food you eat. Plus, it tastes good. To obtain a culture, ask around at the local coop or natural foods store to see if anyone has extras (they produce a new baby with each batch). You can also find one easily online.

Now my last question I have to ask about my baby: What should I name her?

Kombucha
Adapted from Sandor Ellix Katz's Wild Fermentation

About 7 days for fermentation to occur
1 quart filtered water
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon of loose black tea (or 2 teabags)
1 cup (or so) mature kombucha
1 kombucha mother

Mix the water and sugar, and bring to a boil in a small pot.

Turn off the heat, add tea. Cover and steep for about 15 minutes.

Strain the tea into a glass container (do not use plastic or metal; both of these can leach chemicals into the kombucha). Allow tea to cool to body temperature.

Add mature acidic kombucha and kombucha mother. It might float, or it might sink. Doesn't matter. Cover it with a clean cloth and store it in a warm spot, ideally 70 to 85 degrees, undisturbed (the top of the fridge is a good place, in my opinion).

After a few days to one week, you will notice a skin forming on the surface of the kombucha. Taste the liquid. If you like it, pour into bottles to carbonate or store it in the fridge. If you leave it sitting longer, it will become more acidic.

You now have two kombucha mothers: the new one and the old one. You can use either for your new batch and pass the other on to a friend.

-Kylie

A book, a cabbage, an adventure

I have an important announcement. As of this evening, I have officially cast off my culinary diapers and embraced legitimate home cook's underwear. That's right. I'm a big girl now.

Today was the day, I set aside my baking bowls, spatulas, and muffin tins and opened my arms to the millions of microbes floating around my kitchen. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you my very first raw sauerkraut.

This adventure actually began a few weeks ago when a package arrived at my doorstep containing the book Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods by Sandor Ellix Katz (i.e. my personal hero). Now here is a man who makes his living by fermenting anything he can get his hands on: veggies, honey, milk, dough, goat meat...Come on, are you not just a little jealous?

My mother had sent me a copy of his book, and, upon receiving it, I had promptly sat myself down and read it cover to cover. I swear, the book reads almost like a novel (as least as far as cooking books go). As I turned each page, I kept hearing myself think, "my gosh, what will those microbes do next?!" By the time I had reached the final riveting recipe, I considered myself to be a true expert on the art and science of fermented foods. The only problem, of course, was that I had never fermented anything before in my life. "Alright folks," I proclaimed to the helpful microbes serenely bobbing through my kitchen. "It's time to make my very first sauerkraut."

Sauerkraut usually takes 1-4 weeks to finish, depending on how sour you like your kraut to be. Below I've included my (somewhat haphazard) interpretation of the basic steps given in Mr. Katz's book.

Sauerkraut
(makes roughly 1 gallon)

Ingredients and Equipment:

5 pounds of cabbage (green or red - but red's my personal favorite)
3 tablespoons sea salt
1 ceramic crock or food-grade plastic bucket
1 plate that fits inside the crock or bucket
1 weight such as a jar filled with water or a cleaned rock
1 cloth cover such as a towel

Step one:
Chop or grate cabbage and place in a large bowl.

Step two:
Sprinkle salt on the chopped cabbage as you go.

Step three:
Add other vegetables, herbs, or spices. I decided to be a purest on my first attempt, so I went with bare cabbage.

Step four:
Mix everything together and then pack it bit by bit into your crock or bucket. I had a lot of fun with this step by using my fists, jars, a mallet, and anything else that seemed sturdy enough to tamp the cabbage down. The overall idea here is to squeeze as much water out of the cabbage as possible, with the help of the salt, of course.

Step five:
Cover the shredded cabbage with the plate or another object that fits fairly snugly into the opening of the crock or bucket.

Step six:
Push down on the weight every time you pass by your crock or bucket (or just whenever the tasty kraut happens to be on your mind). Within 4 to 24 hours the brine (the water and salt mixture that has been drawn out of the cabbage) should cover all kraut. Cover the bucket with the towel so that no mischievous bugs get any ideas about settling down and raising a family in your fermenting culinary delight.

Step seven:
Leave the sauerkraut alone in a corner of your kitchen to ferment, but check on it every day or two. If a mold appears on the surface of the liquid, just skim it off and don't worry. Your sauerkraut is carefully protected beneath the brine. Start tasting it after about a week, and when it reaches the right degree of tang for your tastebuds, scoop it out and enjoy!

You can store the sauerkraut in a jar in your refrigerator after it's done fermenting.

Stay tuned for the finale of this microbial adventure in a few weeks time.

-Adriana