Who doesn’t love cheese? After some online research I decided that my first attempt at cheese making would be Labneh. I didn’t need specialty equipment, just a piece of cheese cloth. It is a simple 4 day process and I am so happy with the results. I used a recipe I found on Taste which called for Greek Yoghurt, salt, bay leaves, garlic, rosemary, oregano and olive oil.
To begin I mixed the Greek yoghurt and salt together. I placed my cheese cloth in a bowl and added my yoghurt mixture to the center. Before you attempt this please make sure you have enough cheese cloth to wrap around and tie off your cheese. I didn’t in my first piece and yoghurt began to ooze out of the gaps. After a quick rummage in our kitchen draw I was lucky enough to find another piece of cheese cloth that I could use to patch up the holes. I then tied my cheese cloth to a wooden spoon, suspended it over a bowl and put it into the fridge to hang for 3 days. I noticed immediately how much whey had dropped from the yoghurt into the bowl.
The yoghurt mixture after being first wrapped. You can see the whey and the yoghurt that oozed in the bowl below.
On the second day I checked my yoghurt and emptied out any whey in the bowl as I didn’t have much clearance. Each day the yoghurt was thickening and there war less whey to remove. On the third day the Labneh was ready to roll into balls. I got 10 balls out of the 1kg of yoghurt that I used. I placed the balls on a baking tray and placed them back into the fridge where it was recommended they were left for 3 hours. I lost track of time and mine were in the fridge for closer to 5 hours. Unfortunately I missed getting pictures of this part of the process.
Day 2: The Whey has dripped away and the Labneh is drying out.
I used some rosemary and oregano from our garden as well as some fresh garlic and dried bay leaves to flavour the oil. This was done by places the herbs into some clean mason jars, adding the Labneh on top and filling the jars completely with olive oil. The recipes states to leave the Labneh to marinate for 24 hours but I couldn’t resist trying after 12 hours. I had a few sneaky balls on toast with sundried tomato and salami.
I highly recommend making your own Labneh. It’s easy and relatively cheap to make, especially if you are growing your own herbs and/or making your own Greek yoghurt (Something that I would like to try next).
