Dips: Lemon Chevre Dip

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Buying marked down dairy from the organic store was starting to crowd the fridge so I took advantage of a party invitation to use some of the excess lusciousness. I had a fresh batch of homemade chevre, flavoured with lemon zest as an experiment - hated to throw out the zest after using the juice to make the cheese. I also had plain yogurt thickened by draining through a cloth for several hours. (For this recipe you can use ordinary yogurt, because the dip ended up on the thick side - almost a spread.)

The cheese I made turned out lemony but a bit flat tasting so I stirred it into a dip using 3/4 cup of chevre (plain is fine), 1 tsp salt, 1/2 cup extra thick plain yogurt, and 1 tbs dried oregano (thyme would be even better, if you have it). I also stirred in half a lemon's worth of freshly grated lemon zest. I gave the tartness dial another crank with a sprinkle of sumac powder just before serving, though this could be left off. Let sit for twenty minutes or so at room temperature before serving and eat with pita chips (scroll down to croutons in fatouche post) or cut raw vegetables. Also amazingly good with the grapes in the picture.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey... let's start from the beginning. How do you use the lemon juice to make the chevre, please? :)

Pepper said...

Hi Anonymous, I didn't do a cheese post since so many other food bloggers have posted about it. See final paragraph of my ravioli post for links...All I really do is add 3-5 lemons worth of juice to a gallon of organic whole goat milk in the slow cooker and wait for the curds to form, then let it drain in a cheesecloth in the fridge overnight. Still working on the perfect amount of lemon juice and the right heat setting.