[Sca-cooks] raw egg yolks

[The Eloquent Page]

I will look forward to reading your translation of Bifron -

Someone just forwarded some information on pasteurizing eggs.  I am 
going to try that.  I have made it without the egg so far, using a local 
cream.  (I am not sure of the fat content, but it is considerably 
thicker than commercial cream, although not thick enough to for a plug 
of cream to form, and has not additives.) The recipe makes a very rich, 
thick cheese with tiny curds, almost like a slightly grainy cream cheese 
or a very fine, thickened cottage cheese.  I am not sure about letting 
the whey drain away - there wasn't more than a spoonful.  The texture 
smoothed out as I mixed the sugar and rosewater in.  It was very tasty.

Katherine

On 2/15/2017 7:28 PM, Rikke D. Giles wrote:
> This is interesting.  The 'fresh cheese' recipe from Markham's English Housewife is in chap II 'Of Cookery', recipe 161 'To make a fresh cheese'.  It's not in the dairy section (Chap VI) at all.  I would think this 'cheese' is to be eaten immediately, probably as a dessert/sweet (consider the context:  Recipe 160 is a leach Lombard,  162 is a coarse ginger bread).
>
> In the dairy chapter, where pressed and aged cheeses are discussed, Markham never says to put an egg yolk into the cheese or curds.  He does say egg yolks can be added when seasoning rennet curds (and perhaps, whether he knows it or not, that's for color).  But that's it.
>
> As for color, I myself think that period eggs/yolks were usually far more brightly colored than modern.  Why?  Well, I keep chickens, as well as milk goats.  And I let my chickens eat whatever the heck they want (except for my garden, stay out of my garden!).  They are truly free range, as in , they will greet you at your car door when you drive into the farm.  Their eggs' yolks are a rich and deep orangey-yellow.  Store bought egg yolks are very pale, almost non-colored, in comparison; even the 'free range' 'non-caged' organic ones.  Our chickens eat grass, plants, any bug they can catch... Their diet is incredibly varied.  I think that contributes to the color of the yolks.  When our flock has to be kept locked up in the run, for whatever reason, the egg yolks turn pale yellow, like store-bought eggs.
>
> Anyway, using a bright orange-yellow yolk would add some amazing color to the fresh cheese.
>
> There is another recipe for a diary product with egg yolks that I have found.  This is in Thomas Dawson, 'The Good Housewife's Jewel'.  Here he as a recipe for buttered eggs (a sugared butter made with egg yolks).  The point seems to be the color, for he tells one to use the egg whites to make a white butter.  So one has yellow and white sugared butters.
>
> I've just recently been refreshing my learning on period cheese recipes, as I reworked my translation of Bifron's letter on cheese, added a lot of annotation, and presented it at our Baronial A&S competition last week.  I'll get my rewrite to Stefan for the Florilegium soon, the old translation is in the Florilegium already.
>
> Aelianora de Wyntringham
> mka Rikke Giles
>
>
>
>
> On 02/15/2017 02:51:50 PM, The Eloquent Page wrote:
>> I have made some basic cheeses, so the milk is ok.  It's the egg yolk
>> that was worrying me.  I can't see anything which would make the egg
>> yolk safe.  It's certainly not a cheese you could keep, wit the raw
>> egg yolk in it.  I was just wondering if someone had come across a
>> similar recipe.  Sometimes there is an important bit missing.
>>
>> Katherine