[Sca-cooks] feathered emergencies

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

On Sunday, June 29, 2003, at 02:30  PM, Huette von Ahrens wrote:

>
> --- "Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius"
> <adamantius at verizon.net> wrote:
>>
>> You might try the goat-cheese balls rolled in
>> mint and stored in olive
>> oil. I'm not sure what the season for that item
>> is, though. I believe
>> even the really good ME markets only carry it
>> at certain times of the
>> year.
>>
>> Adamantius
>
> Yum!  Do you recall the name of this?  I just
> don't want to go into a ME market asking for
> "goat-cheese balls rolled in mint and stored in
> olive oil".

Um. Labneh in Oil? I'm really not sure. As I recall whenever I buy it 
the label uses non-Roman characters I have no hope of reading. It'll be 
a quart jar, maybe a little smaller, of what look like those little 
mozzarella boconcini rolled in crushed dried herbs (usually, but not 
always, mint; it depends what part of the Mediterranean coast we're 
thinking from -- thyme and rosemary are also good if you can find them, 
but that's more a French and less of a ME thang), submerged in olive 
oil.

It _is_ labneh, IOW, goats-milk yogurt, drained until as thick as cream 
cheese, lightly salted. Relatively easy to make. The trick is to make 
sure to use goat's milk yogurt (probably Bulgarian culture), and never 
cow's milk, because cow's milk labneh will simply dissolve in the oil, 
even if you do succeed in rolling it into balls. Which most people 
don't ;-).

I usually find the stuff in jars in the unrefrigerated grocery section, 
usually plain or with herbs are both represented on the shelves, 
alongside the cans of fake dolmades, stuffed eggplants, pickles in jars 
and cans, etc.

Adamantius