[Sca-cooks] Digby Slipcoat Cheese

[Kathleen Madsen]

There are three recipes in Digby, I have included them
below.  Let me know how your's come out as I've been
experimenting with them myself.  :)


"To Make Slipp Coat Cheese" Digby, page 223

According to the bigness of your moulds proportion
your stroakings for your Cheese-curds.  To six quarts
of stroakings, take a pint of Springwater: if the
weather be hot, then let the water be cold, and before
you put it into the stroakings, let them stand a while
to cool after they are milked, and then put in the
water with a little Salt first stirred in it: and
having stirred it well together, let it stand a little
while, and then put in about two good spoonfuls of
Runnet, stir it well together, and cover it with a
fair linnen-cloth, and when it is become hard like a
thick jelly, with a skimming-dish lay it gently into
the moulds, and as it sinks down into the moulds, fill
it still up again, till all be in, which will require
some three or four hours time.  Then lay a clean fine
cloth into antoher mould of the same cise, and turn it
into it, and then turn the skirts of the cloth over
it, and lay upon that a thin board, and upon that as
much weight, as with the board may make two pounds or
thereabouts.  And about an hour after, lay another
clean cloth into the other mould, and turn the Cheese
into that; then lay upon the board so much, as will
make it six or seven pound weight; and thus continue
turning of it till night: then take away the weight,
and lay it no more on it; then take a very small
quantity of Salt finely beaten, and sprinkle the
Cheese all over with it as lightly as can be imagined.
 Next morning turn it into another dry cloth, and let
it lye out of the mould upon a plain board, and change
it as often as it wets the cloth, which must be three
or four times a day: when it is so dry, that it wets
the cloth no more, lay it upon a bed of green-rushes,
and lay a row upon it; but be sure to pick the bents
clean off, and lay them even all one way: if you
cannot get good rushes, take nettles or grass.  If the
weather is cold, cover them with a linnen and woollen
cloth; in case you cannot get stroakings, take five
quarts of new Milk, and one of Cream.  If the weather
be cold, heat the water that you put to the
stroakings.  Turn the Cheese every day, and put to it
fresh of whatsoever you keep it in.  They are usually
ripe in ten days.


"To Make Slipp-Coat-Cheese" Digby, page 224

Master Phillips his Method and proportions in making
slippe-coat Cheese, are these.  Take six wine quarts
of stroakings, and two quarts of Cream; mingle these
well together, and let them stand in a bowl, till they
are cold.  Then power upon them three pints of boiling
fair water, and mingle them well together; then let
them stand, till they are almost cold, colder then
milk-warm.  Then put to it a moderate quantity of
Runnet, made with fair water (not whey, or any other
thing then water; this is an important point), and let
it stand till it come.  Have a care not to break the
Curds, nor ever to touch them with your hands, but
only with your skimming dish.  In due time lade the
Curds with the dish, into a thin fine Napkin, held up
by two persons, that the whey may run from them
through the bunt of the Napkin, which you rowl gently
about, that the Curds may dry without breaking.  When
the whey is well drained out, put the Curds as whole
as you can into the Cheese-fat, upon a napkin, in the
fat.  Change the Napkin, and turn the Cheese every
quarter of an hour, and less, for ten, twelve or
fourteen times; that is, still as soon as you perceive
the Napkin wet with the whay running from the Curds. 
Then press it with a half pound weight for two or
three hours.  Then add half a pound more for as long
time, then another half pound for as long, and lastly
another half pound, which is two pounds in all; which
weight must never be exceeded.  The next day, (when
about twenty four hours are past in all) salt your
Cheese moderately with white Salt, and then turn it
but three or four times a day, and keep it in a cotton
cloth, which will make it mellow and sweet, not rank,
and will preserve the coat smooth.  It may be ready to
eat in about twelve days.  Some lay it to ripen in
dock-leaves, and it is not amiss; but that in rain
they will be wet, which moulds the Cheese.  Others in
flat fit boxes of wood, turning them, as is said,
three or four times a day.  But a cotton cloth is
best.  This quantity is for a round large Cheese, of
about the bigness of a sale ten peny Cheese, a good
fingers-breadth thick.  Long broad grass ripeneth them
well, and sucketh out the moisture.  Rushes are good
also.  They are hot, but dry not the moisture so well.
  My Lady of Middlesex makes excellent slipp-coat
Cheese of good morning milk, putting Cream to it.  A
quart of Cream is the proportion she useth to as much
milk, as both together make a large round Cheese of
the bigness of an ordinary Tartplate, or Cheese-plate;
as big as an ordinary soft cheese, that the
Market-women sell for ten pence.  Thus for want of
stroakings at London you may take one part of Cream to
five or six of morning milk, and for the rest proceed
as with stroakings; and these will prove as good.


"Slipp-Coat Cheese" Digby, page 226

Take three quarts of the last of the stroakings of as
many Cows as you have; keep it covered, that it may
continue warm; put to it a skimming dishful of
Spring-water; then putin two spoonfulls of Runnet, so
let it stand until it be hard come: when it is hard
come, set your fat on the bottome of a hairseive, take
it up by degrees, but break it not; when you have laid
it all in the fat, take a fine cloth, and lay it over
the Cheese, and work it in about the sides, with the
back of a Knife; then lay a board on it, for half an
hour: after half an hour, set on the board an half
pound stone, so let it stand two hours; then turn it
on that board, and let the cloth be both under and
over it, then pour it into the fat again; Then lay a
pound and half weight on it; Two hours after turn it
again on a dry cloth, and salt it, then set on it two
pound weight, and let it stand until the next morning.
 Then turn it out of the Cheese-fat, on a dry board,
and so keep it with turning on dry boards three days. 
In case it run abroad, you must set it up with wedges;
when it begins to stiffen, lay green grass or rushes
upon it: when it is stiff enough, let rushes be laid
both under and over it.  If this Cheese be rightly
made, and the weather good to dry it, it will be ready
in eight days: but in case it doth not dry well, you
must lay it on linnen-cloth, and woollen upon it, to
hasten the ripening of it.

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All three of these recipes are quite different from
each other.  The first recipe will make a smaller
cheese that has a springy, somewhat moist paste -
kinda like a very young brie - and is the easiest of
the three to make.  The second one is a large, flat
cheese that will have a harder paste from the hot
water.  This will be more chewy and cut in wedges with
a thicker rind.  The last one (that I haven't tried
yet) looks more difficult to manage as it seems like
the curd and paste is much sofer and more liquid. 
Tell me which you make and how they turn out.  

Eibhlin the cheese-geek