Day 8

Very tired today.

The picture on the left is that of the demo room where we get shown what we're cooking the next day.

The days morning lecture was all about Cheese, Butter and Yoghurt and how to make them all, they made 4 or 5 cheeses in front of us today, it was quite impressive. The easiest being Paneer cheese. Which I'll certainly post up the recipe.

In the afternoon the lecture was Afternoon Tea - A huge selection of cakes that were made in front of our very eyes.

This is my schedule tomorrow, pretty much a typical day.

6:30 Get up
6:45 Let dogs out (Therese is away at the minute)
7:00 Wash etc, get stuff together
7:10 Drive to Ballymaloe
7:50 Arrive at Ballymaloe
8:00 Meet Eileen to pick the salad for lunch
9:00 Arrive in Kitchen to cook
12.00 Have food tasted
12:30 Lunch
13:45 Evening demonstration for tomorrows cooking
17:10 Drive back to Cork
18:00 Walk dogs (there's 3 of them, all little treasures)
18.30 Cook dinner
19.00 Do website freelance type stuff (intermingled with the mutts playing up)
22.00 Prepare order of work for tomorrows cooking
22:30 Shower etc
23:30 Sleep

Don't get me wrong, I'm loving every second of it, but it's not easy!

PANEER CHEESE
1.8 litres of full cream milk
3-4 tablespoons of lemon juice or white wine vinegar

Bring the milk to the boil in a large saucepan. As soon as it starts to rise, add 3 tablespoons of the lemon/vinegar. Stir and remove from the heat. The milk should now curdle. If it hasn't, return to the boil and add the remaining lemon/vinegar, and then remove from the heat again.

Place a sieve over a deep bowl, and insert either a cheese cloth or 2 layers of muslin into the sieve and pour the curds and whey into the strainer and allow to drain until the whey has completely drained.

Now place the curds into a mould with holes in and press down or improvise by just weighting the curds like you would if you were pressing flowers.

And just wait for 5-10 mins and there you have it. Paneer cheese. Easy. Most cheeses really are this easy to make.