Mixing Milks
Mixing different animals’ milks was a common practice at the small farms in Europe. Most of the farms had a variety of animals, and each animal had different lactation cycles and lengths. When they produced a small amount of milk, the farmers mixed whatever they got. When I started making cheese, I could not afford to buy expensive goat’s milk as a novice cheesemaker. Goat’s milk is usually three times more expensive than cow’s milk by volume, and the yield is lower, so the cost of the milk for the same weight of cheesemaker is about 3.5-4 times more. I got a small amount of goat’s milk when the dairy owner I worked with had surplus milk. The amount of milk was not enough to run an independent batch, so she gave me a small amount of goat’s milk whenever she did not want to waste it.
I started mixing cow’s milk and goat’s milk by necessity possibly as the first cheesemaker in the US. Jersey cow’s milk can be a little too heavy and has the tendency to build bitterness, and goat’s milk adds delicate texture and a hint of grassy lightness in flavor. Frugality and creativity work together in traditional artisans’ world.
Ballad
The Hard cheese
The cheesemaking follows a traditional French Monastery cheese recipe like Port Salut and many tommes from various areas in France. Tomme de Savoie, Saint Nectaire, and Bethmale use the same recipe. The rind is finished with Pomegranate concentrate to express the nature where the cheese is made. The cheesemaking vat and pressor are located with the view of the huge pomegranate tree over the window. The tree was planted when I built the dairy 18 years ago. It was a very small bare-root stick and grew into a huge tree shading the main window. The jersey milk is from the coastal dairy in Tamales, and the goat milk is from the farm where Andante dairy is located.
The cheesemaking follows a traditional French Monastery cheese recipe like Port Salut and many tommes from various areas in France. Tomme de Savoie, Saint Nectaire, and Bethmale use the same recipe. The rind is finished with Pomegranate concentrate to express the nature where the cheese is made. The cheesemaking vat and pressor are located with the view of the huge pomegranate tree over the window. The tree was planted when I built the dairy 18 years ago. It was a very small bareroot stick and grew into a huge tree shades the main window. The jersey milk is from the coastal dairy in Tamales, and the goat milk is from the farm where Andante dairy is located in.
-Size: 2lb -5lb
-Ingredients: 80% Jersey milk, 20% goat’s milk, starter culture, rennet, salt, pomegranate concentrate
Mélange
As the name indicates, Mélange is a mixed milk cheese. I mix some goat’s milk into cow’s milk to make this round-shaped one. It does not follow the name from music because I had to explain the practice more directly to the people. Adding cow’s milk into goat’s milk was adulteration because goat’s milk is a lot more expensive, and cow’s milk people were always suspicious about goat’s milk.
It is a little lighter in color than all cow’s milk cheese due to goat’s milk’s whiteness and slightly more tang.
-Size: 4.5oz
-Ingredients: Jersey cow’s milk, goat’s milk, starter culture, vegetarian rennet, salt
Rondo
Rondo is the festive and faster movements in Music. It’s usually for the third movement in sonatas after the introductory grand first movement and lyrical andante or adagio second movement. It’s the final section to complete the sonata.
Rondo is finished with herb de Provence and pink peppercorn on Mélange to reflect the Mediterranean weather where I make cheese, and herbs grow profusely year-round.
-Size: 4.5oz
-Ingredients: Jersey cow’s milk, goat’s milk, starter culture, vegetarian rennet, salt, herb de Provence, pink peppercorns
Figaro
Wrapping small cheese in leaves is one of those ancient ways of preserving cheese. Melange is wrapped in wine-soaked fig leaves for Figaro. Fig leaves are edible and used as spice and tea and have a distinctive herbaceous flavor and tropical fruit scent. Infusing fig leaves in milk or cream takes a hidden coconut and vanilla scent. Many Mediterranean cooks wrap oily fish with fig leaves for grilling to perfume the flesh. Figaro is produced to express our Mediterranean-like climate, and the fig leaves perfume mixed milk cheese and give a pleasant herbaceous note.
-Size: 5oz.
-Ingredients: Jersey cow’s milk, goat’s milk, starter culture, vegetarian rennet, salt, fig leaf, white wine