Whey too good!

This weekend the weather was so crazy (very cold in the morning with very very hot days) that I wanted to make a traditional mexican food: jocoque. From the word Xococ, which means sour, it is basically sour milk... ok, don't make a face just yet! cause this is soooo yummy!

You need only the milk I am such a dunce that I did not take photos from the beggining of the process, but the start is quite simple: you need the best quality of milk you can get, freshly milked. I like the morning one, cause it is thicker.

You start by NOT BOILING IT. That's right, just cover it with a cloth and leave it in the kitchen counter. Hot weather makes for a quicker, less sour jocoque. After a day and a half, the milk will have separated in three strata: on top a dull beige layer, then the curds, then the whey.

First, you need to carefully scrape off the top layer. It is very thin, about an eight of an inch, but it's very sour, so you don't want that mixing with the curds.

Ok, now that you've taken that layer off, it is time to fish up the curds!!! you want to let them rest a little in the coleander before you dump them into your blender.

What's left in the bottom is whey. It is very protein rich, so you would be able to use it in soups if you like, or boil it with a little salt and get something very much like pannacotta, that we call requesón.

You placed your curds in the blender, now you have to add a teaspoon or so of salt per quart of curds... whizzzzz! blend it until it is smooth, then taste it. I like to add my salt little by little, so I don't make it too salty.

Once blended, you get something like this:

It is fresh and cool and delicious! add some mint leaves to a bowl of jocoque, or maybe freshly cooked beans, or a chunky salsa and tortillas, and eat up!

Now, for the photos of my top: here's the first rows, last week

This is how it looked Saturday night, when I could not load the pics to blogger:

AND... this is how it looked this morning!! yaay! I'm almost there!

Happy crafty week, friends!