Skip to main content

A cheese called quark



Every month, the food blogging world gets abuzz with an event called Tried and Tasted. The host for the month picks their favorite blog and invites other bloggers to cook a dish they like from the chosen site. I've been an occasional participant in the event, but I just couldn't stay away this month when Jayasri picked Deeba, my favorite baker.

When you first visit Passionate About Baking, you can't help getting impressed with Deeba's sweet goodies. But the moment I saw the announcement, the only thing I thought of was quark.

Deeba got enamored with this curd cheese a couple of years back. I make Neufchatel frequently as a cream cheese substitute so I've often wondered how quark will stand up. This is finally my chance.

All this needs is milk and buttermilk. And a lot of patience; two whole days worth of it. The end result is a delicious product that's part sour cream, part cheese. At some point, I'd amble over to Deeba's blog again and pick a recipe to use the quark. In the meantime, I've been enjoying it with honey and granola.

Comments

notyet100 said…
ummm looks yum,..
Myvegfare said…
thanks for sending this to my event, I was really expecting something like this from her blog!, the cheese post is a good one right ?, you have really done damn good job yaar
Unknown said…
You made quark. I've been seeing it around so much. What's the taste like?

Popular posts from this blog

I've found my perfect cookie

It's a bite sized cookie, with flavors of a pie, shape of a croissant and a pretty, pretty name. It's Rugelach. I first heard of this cookie when it became the baking pick for Tuesdays with Dorrie a couple of months back. The looks, the concept - everything was fascinating. And I've dreamed of making this cookie ever since. I ditched hundreds of recipes floating around and went straight to the master. It's Dorie Greenspan's recipe that I used, and ain't I glad I got it so perfect the very first time. So what's rugelach? It's cream-cheese pastry dough, rolled then cut into wedges, spread with jam and sugar and fillings of choice, rolled into crescents and baked. First the dough. Dorie did it in her processor, but I just went and did it by hand. Put 100 gms cream cheese and 100 gms butter out of the fridge until they were soft but still cold. Added both to a cup of plain flour (I omitted the salt because I use salted butter). Rubbed the flour and but

Aloo Paranthas

In all these years of blogging, I've somehow never managed to talk about aloo paranthas, the potato stuffed flatbread that's a standard breakfast in North India. Possibly because they are such a staple in our home, I found there wouldn't be enough interest in the recipe. But I've also realised over time that my mom's recipe is unique, using a combination of flavours and spices that make these paranthas delicious. But that's not the only reason for this post. I also wanted to tell you about a super cool party and some ways we found to make aloo paranthas even better and believe it or not, healthier. The party in question was hosted by Rushina at her cooking studio a few months back. For a while now, Rushina has been talking about the merits of cling film, parchment and something called cooking foil made by Asahi Kasei. Because we won't believe that you can really cook without oil but using science, she invited a bunch of us over for a potluck lunch.

Mystery Fruit

This only happened a few times every year, just when the rainy season kicked in. A street hawker will come by, straw basket on head. He will yell "kaul chapni" and I will run out to buy a bundle of these. Stuck together like flowers, they looked like a bouquet. Every hole contains a little fruit. You break out the package, peel the tiny fruit that pops out and eat it. Done slowly, it can take you an hour to eat an head. Or did, when I was about 12 years old. That was the last time I saw this fruit. I've never seen it again, didn't even know what it was called or where it came from. Three weeks back, Vikram Doctor wrote about a store in Khar that sells Sindhi foods. He described this fruit and I knew it came from my vivid childhood memories. And finally, I knew we were talking about lotus fruit. Now talk about coincidences. Last weekend, I was passing by a lane in Bandra and for the first time in many, many years I saw the straw basket filled with my mytery fru