[Sca-cooks] Junket

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Ariane Helou:
>It sounds a little like cottage cheese to me.

Junket is softer, and less distinctively curdy, than cottage cheese. 
More like milk-based Jello or the softest varieties of Japanese tofu 
in consistency. The primary difference is that junket is made to be 
eaten in less than, say, 12 hours after adding the rennet, and so 
drainage isn't really encouraged in any extreme way. So, the curds 
are left to drain, but are otherwise left pretty much undisturbed, 
and it doesn't really have a lot of little, broken curds. Ideally, 
it's one big, soft curd.

>  I'm not sure what "put it between reeds" means -- pressing it, I 
>suppose?  Which would mean it's much more solid than cottage cheese 
>-- maybe more like farmer's cheese or something.  The alternate 
>instructions to put it in cold water make me think that the curds 
>can either be pressed and served later, or kept cool and served 
>fresh the same day.

Junket, it has been alleged by some, is named for the woven 
broomflower (jonquil) stem basket traditionally associated with 
draining the stuff. Putting it between reeds suggests, to me, that it 
goes on top of a row or mat of reeds laid out to allow drainage, then 
covered with more reeds to protect it from drying, bugs and dust. I 
don't think it's pressed, except perhaps by gravity. The instruction 
to put it in cold water suggests that the goal is to keep it firm, 
but also moist, and above all, to keep it from souring.

>Since the meal I'm planning this for is at a camping event, I'd need 
>to make the junket anywhere from a week to a day in advance, so the 
>pressed version seems more appropriate.  On the other hand, if it's 
>going to be very time-consuming or difficult, perhaps I ought to 
>just buy more cheeses and devote my energies to the more substantial 
>and central parts of the meal... which brings me back to the 
>question of what a finished junket looks like, anyway. :-)

I'd try making a batch, maybe according to a modern recipe (you can 
even buy commercial junket tablets, which supply a weaker form of 
rennet than that used for cheeses), just to become familiar with the 
process before you decide what to do in the end. Me, I'd just make it 
at the event, in the morning, and serve it in the evening.

Adamantius
-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
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Holt, 07/29/04