Recipe - Skyr - Icelandic quark

Skyr - Icelandic quark

Skyr is an Icelandic tradition thought to have been brought to Iceland by the norwegian Vikings that settled in Iceland - a tradition that was kept alive and refined through time whilst more or less forgotten in the rest of Scandinavia.

Skyr looks and tastes like thick yogurt but it is actually a type of fresh cheese with low fat content because it is made from skimmed milk. Preparing homemade skyr takes a little bit of time but it is well worth the effort!

To make skyr you need the bacterial culture unique to skyr, either from fresh Skyr or from a starter culture. Buying fresh skyr can prove difficult in countries outside Scandinavia but if you are lucky enough to find it in the grocery store, you have what is needed to make homemade skyr. You can use plain yogurt, sour cream, buttermilk or a mixture of each as a substitute but the flavor will not be quite the same.

This recipe yields about 1 liter skyr + 1 liter whey. If you prefer smaller portions, just make half a portion.

Ingredients for cirka 1 liter:

2 litres of skimmed milk
2 drops of rennet
1 tbsp. skyr (purchased or taken from a freshly homeade batch)
- or make your own starter culture by using 1 tbsp. plain yogurt, buttermilk or sour cream. Or simply use yogurt starter culture.

Required tools:

Pot
Thermometer
Sieve or colander
Cheesecloth

Steps:

Heat the milk to 86-90°C and let it slowly cool to 39°C. That takes a few hours.

Add rennet, fresh skyr and stir thoroughly. As alternative to fresh skyr, use fresh yogurt, buttermilk, cremefraiche or a mix of them - or use a starter culture.

If you use starter culture, dissolve the powder in a small portion of the luke warm milk and add that to the milk.

Use either
1 sachet starter culture
or
1-2 piches starter culture from a glass vial with snap cap.

Pour the milk into a yogurt maker if you have one. If not, cover the pot and carefully wrap it in a towel or blanket to keep it warm.

Leave the milk to ferment and coagulate for 5 hours. If left for only 4½ hours, the curd comes out looking slightly coarse and if left for much longer than 5hours it becomes too stiff to be strained properly.

Once 5 hours have passed, cut into the curd using a long knife. If that leaves a nice clean cut on the surface that stays open - move on to the next step below. If not, let the curd ferment a little longer.

Take a collander or sieve, line it with cheese cloth and supend the whole thing over a pot or a cheese tray to collect the whey that drains off.

Pour the curd into the collander/sieve - make sure it fills up no more than 7-9 cm high. If the process has been succesfull, only a little whey will drain off and whey should only be visible calong the sides and edges. By looking at the curd you can often know, if skyr has turned out as it should. It is a good sign if the curd breaks apart and shatter into smaller pieces, however it should never appear thin nor lumpy.

Leave the curd to strain slowly while refrigated for 12-24 hours.

When the skyr seems firm and dry it is ready to be savoured.

Keep it covered and it will stays fresh in the fridge for 4-5 days.

Tips:
Savour Skyr as it is or enjoy it with a little milk and sugar, with fruits and berries or even müsli topped with brown sugar or honey.

The whey can be used for baking or cooking a myriad of other delightful foods - it works very well in breads, smoothies, for marinades or even as a subsitute to white wines in many recipes.

When you are mindful about hygiene, freshly homemade skyr can be used to culture milk for a new batch of skyr, again and again. However, if taste or texture begin to diviate too much from the original, start over by making a fresh batch of skyr using fresh starter culture.

Notes:
If no whey drains of the curd, or if whey floats the curd surface - or if the curd does not schrink to leave a small gap between the sides of the colander/sieve - then something has gone wrong somewhere in the process. Sometimes these things happens if the milk was not heated to the right temperature, or if the milk cooled off too fast during coagulation. This slows the act of rennet. Note also that larger pots keep warm for longer than smaller pots.

Only fresh Skyr made from heirloom yogurt starter cultures (in sachets) are suitable for repeated use for culturing new batches. Skyr made from our non-heirloom starter cultures (in vials with snap cap) are not and fresh starter should be used to culture each new batch you make.