Crowdie: an Easy to Make, Traditional Scottish Cheese

Crowdie is an ancient Scottish cheese. The most reliable tales strongly suggest that it was brought to Scotland by the Vikings around 820 CE; others suggest that that it was first made much earlier by the Picts. Of all the excellent cheeses made in Scotland it is probably the oldest. It is certainly the most simple to make at home. At its most basic, it only requires one ingredient - milk.

All fresh from the cow (or sheep or goat) milk contains beneficial bacteria which naturally sour milk or cream and creates or assists in the making of dairy product such as cheese, butter and youhurt. Unfortunately cows can carry diseases such as tuberculosis. In British Victorian era cities, contaminated milk was one of the major causes of the ubiquity of this terrible killer disease.

This continued to be a severe problem until the introduction of Pasteurisation; where milk is heated rapidly to a temperature which kills the pathogens and is then chilled very quickly to avoid spoiling the flavour or texture of the milk. This is very effective and has saved millions of lives, but it is not so good for making Crowdie which relies on the natural bacteria in the milk.

There is, however, a vey easy fix for this problem. The sterile milk we are familiar with today can be innoculated with a a new culture such as live yoghurt or in this case cultured buttermilk. This makes a mild slightly sweet cheese to which you can make all the additions you like. I will suggest a few later on.

You will need the following ingredients

• Milk - The easiest to obtain is supermarket pasteurised and homogenised whole milk. You can use skimmed or semi-skimmed milk, but the results will not be as pleasing. If you can find it, you could use unpasturised milk but it is likely to be expensive. To get a yield of about 500g you will need 2.272 litres - that is 4 British pints. This is the equivalent of 4.8 US pints This is a 22% yield which is common with soft cheeses.
• Buttermilk - This is not hard to find on the dairy shelves of supermarkets. It is commonly used to make baked goods like scones. It is important to use "Cultured" buttermilk. I have not seen any other kind in British supermarkets, but I have read that in USA, milk soured chemically and stabilised with starch can be labelled as buttermillk. This will NOT work.

You will need some equipment.

• A pan big enough to hold all of the milk - say 3 litres
• A slotted spoon for stirring
• A colander to aid in draining the curds
• A sqaure of Butter muslin or similar cloth. You cannot use cheesecloth the weave is too open.
• Optional - a thremometer. This is not essential - Highland crofters did not have one.

The pan, spoon and colander need to be enamelled or made of stainless steel. When you need to use the equipment, it needs to be sterilised. The easy way to do this is to put the spoon and muslin into the colander. Fill the pan with water and bring to the boil. Put the colander with its contents on top of the pan and allow the boiling water and steam to bubble through the holes in the colander. Boil for 5 minutes and then pour off the water. Allow everything to cool before using. Also be careful not to scald yourself ! Alternatively you could use a chemical cleaner provided it is sufficiently washed off after use to avoid contaminating the cheese.

The first step in creating your cheese is souring the milk.

• Open your jug of milk and tub of buttermilk
• Put about 60ml (4Tablespoons) of the buttermilk into the fresh milk and reseal the milk jug. You can use the rest of the buttermilk for baking. (Omit this stage if you are using unpasteurised milk)
• Put the milk into a warm place to ripen. I put mine into an airing cupboard at about 25C
• You need to wait until the milk curdles. You will recognise this by the milk turning from a runny liquid to an almost jelliy like state. This is described as "clabbered" in the southern USA. This wiil take somewhere from 24-48 hours.

For the next step the curds will need your almost constant attention.

• Pour the clabbered milk into your sterilised pan and put onto a cooker ring on a low heat. From now on you will need to constantly stir the milk with the slotted spoon. This is to ensure all the milk is at the same temperature and - very important - the curds do not stick to the pan and burn. Keep the milk container and lid; you will need them later
• The milk will first start to become more liquid. As the temperature rises,the curds and whey will separate and the curds will start to clump together. Continue stirring. When the temperature is high enough the curds will not easily drain through the spoon - see the photographs oh the curds at 40C and 48C
• Let the temperature rise another few degrees to say 52C and then remove from the heat and allow to rest for about half an hour.

Although I measured the temperatures to make sure I give you the best chance to succeed all this can easily be done by eye. This a very forgiving cheese.

Now is when you customise this recipe to suit your needs.

• Start by lining your colander with the muslin and place it a large bowl to catch the whey that drains off. Gently pour all the contents of the pan into the muslin. You will probably need to pause several times to let the curds drain
• Let the curds drain undisturbed for about an hour. After that turn the curds by gently pulling on each corner of the muslin in turn
• Drain for about another hour. You now have a useable cheese. It will be drier than the clabbered milk you heated, but still very moist. At this point you could make salad dressings, use it as a substitute for ricotta or you could make desserts by mixing in a little honey of sugar along with some puree fruit.

Do not waste the whey that has drained from your cheese. Put it back into the milk container. It will keep for a week or more in the fridge. A quick web search will reveal a surprisingly large number of uses ranging from cookery to skin care .

To carry on and make a more traditional Crowdie you should

• Tie the curds into a bundle by gathering the edges of the muslin together and tie them together to make a bundle. Use sufficient string to make a loop and use it to hang the bundle for up to 10 hours. Remember to put a bowl underneath the bundle to catch the drips
• You are now ready to make what you will with your new batch of Crowdie.

It would be foolish to try and list all the possible uses for Crowdie, so I will only mention two Traditional Scottish uses.

A soft cheese.

Start by adding about 0.5% salt by weight i.e half gram of salt to every 100 grams of cheese. Any type salt will be fine. The amount is not critical but should not be a lot as it might swamp the mild flavour of the cheese. A good pinch for every 100 grams will be fine. You could add chopped garlic - wild garlic grows all over Scotland. You could liberally dose the cheese wtih wonderfully aromatic freshly cracked black pepper. Be guided by your personal preferences Mix thouroughly. Divide the mixed cheese into 100 gram portions and roll them in toasted course oatmeal. This needs to be real oatmeal, not "quick" or "easy" oatmeal and certainly not "rolled oats". Let it develop its flavour in the fridge overnight and it is ready to serve with oat cakes - what else? - this is a proudly Scottish cheese.

A dessert (sorry no photo of this. raspberries are out of season)

Do not add salt for this. First mix some runny honey with a small spoonful of good Scotch Whisky and mix thouroughly. Take about 100 grams of cheese per serving and fold in a tablespoon (or more to taste) of the alcoholic honey. Do not mix thouroughly; you want swirls. If the cheese is dry add a small spoonful of single cream and mix well before adding the honey. Using your clean hands form the cheese into bowl shapes and put into individual serving dishes. Fill the cheese bowl with fresh raspberries and pour cream round the base of the cheese. Finish off by drizzling everything with more boozy honey. What more can I say !

I have thouroughly enjoyed writing this, my first insatructable. I started it at a leisurely pace, but when I found that there was a "Cheese Speed Challenge" and I had only hours to finish and enter, I had to Increase my rate of work dramatically. This made it a greater challenge and this was even more fun !

BletchleyBadger