Strained Yogurt and Labneh

We’ve been making our own yogurt for a while now, and while most of the time we eat it as it comes, there’s plenty more you can do to make it something a little bit different.

A few years ago, in our pre-Sidney days, we travelled to Jordan and Israel. It was an incredible holiday and we saw so many extraordinary places. One of the things we remember most fondly is the food, particularly the hummus, falafel and labneh that we treated ourselves to daily.

I’m a big fan of eastern Mediterranean and Middle Eastern breakfasts; give me a plate of labneh or goats’ cheese, salty olives, a boiled egg and a flatbread and I’m a happy lady. In Jordan, in particular, the labneh was creamy, smooth, and there they sprinkle it with za’atar – a genius spice mix with wild thyme, marjoram, oregano, sesame seeds, salt, and sometimes sumac, that they also serve in little paper wraps with loaves of soft bread in Jerusalem – and drizzle it with olive oil to make the perfect dip for flatbread.

You can buy labneh here from specialist shops, but it’s actually very easy to make with runny yogurt (even better if it’s homemade). You simply season the yogurt with a little salt – start with ¼–½ teaspoon for 500g yogurt and adjust up or down to your taste the next time around – and then strain it through a cloth for several hours to drain away the whey (I use one of Sidney's old muslins). You’re left with a thick yogurt that looks just like cream cheese – a light straining will give you a smooth yogurt perfect for dipping, a longer strain results in a firmer yogurt that can be spread on bread or rolled into balls and stored in oil to use later in salads, tagines or just slathered on toast. It’s exactly the same principle for Greek yogurt, but you don’t need to strain it for quite as long, or salt it.

For labneh balls, you can season your oil with all sorts of delicious things. Traditionally it’s just plain olive oil, which gives you the option of adding flavourings later, depending on what you're making. This is quite handy for fussy young eaters because they won’t be put off by anything unusual. You can, of course, leave out the salt if you prefer.

For flavourings try bay leaves, peppercorns and herbs such as oregano or rosemary. You can add a couple of peeled garlic cloves and lemon slices or chopped chilli. To this pot I added lemon balm and rosemary from the garden, with a few peppercorns and flakes of dried oregano. As the balls are quite delicate it helps to pour in the oil gradually, covering each layer before adding the next. Simply leave the jar in the fridge for a couple of days to let the flavours take hold, then spoon out your labneh balls whenever you need them.

Another option is to serve them as canapés. Roll them in sesame seeds, crushed pink peppercorns or chopped herbs and they won’t make too much of a mess. You can also flavour them with harissa for a spicier version, or honey for something sweet. Replace the salt with a little sugar and/or fruit purée and you can make sweet versions that can be rolled in chopped nuts or grated dark chocolate.

And don’t forget to use the whey strained from the yogurt. You’ll be amazed how much you’re left with and it’s magical, protein-rich stuff. I use it to replace the water for pancakes or bread; it makes them lighter and fluffier and that much better for you. Or I add it to stocks and soups, or to Sidney’s meals if they need a little thinning out, for the added flavour and protein. Remember there’s salt in the whey if you’ve made labneh. You can also freeze it.

Smooth Labneh will keep in the fridge for up to a couple of weeks. Here I've seasoned ours with za'atar and drizzled it with olive oil. Labneh balls in properly sterilised jars should last at least 6 months and up to a year. It might seem like too much effort to make yogurt or labneh into balls, but it really is worth it. It doesn't take much time and you'll have a pot of delicious soft cheese to dip into whenever you need an additional creamy element for a pasta dish, something simple to spread on pancakes, or a cooling counter to a hot curry.

Homemade Yogurt

We eat a lot of yogurt. Sidney and his dad eat some after every meal (currently mixed with a little apple compote), and I join them more often than not. Plus we ate Bircher muesli with yogurt every morning for most of the summer. We used to buy Greek yogurt from the supermarket, which is delicious but not often organic, and I’d read so much about how easy it is to make it at home that we decided to give it a try.

Yogurt is just milk and culture. It’s nothing more complicated than that. There are lots and lots of methods for making it at home, but the key to all of them is temperature. You need to heat your milk to 80˚C and then cool it to around 45˚C, at which point you add a spoonful of yogurt. Then you’re done.

What’s tricky is maintaining the temperature for long enough to set the milk. Heating the yogurt kills off any bad bacteria and changes the protein structure so that it sets firm rather than splitting, plus it gives a richer flavour. You need to cool it because if it’s too hot it will kill the active cultures that make it yogurt. You want to maintain a temperature of between 43˚C and 35˚C long enough for the proteins to multiply and set the yogurt.

We tried several methods. First I put plastic pots in the oven, but mine isn’t sensitive enough to maintain such a low temperature consistently. Then I tried keeping jars warm in a rice cooker. That didn’t work either. I tried the oven again, this time pouring the yogurt into a terracotta pot. That worked a bit better, but it took quite a bit of effort to maintain the right temperature and the yogurt was a little thin in the middle. It was too fiddly for me to bother doing it regularly (plus there was a nasty aftertaste from the pot).

Finally I tried the simplest method I’d read about. I poured the yogurt into pots again and kept them warm in a picnic cool bag. It sounds counterintuitive, but what keeps food cool will also keep it hot. It worked perfectly and we had smooth, creamy yogurt all through the summer.

Then autumn came, the temperature dropped and our delicious yogurt refused to set. It just wasn’t warm enough in the kitchen to keep the temperature inside the cooler high enough for long enough. Plus I think the yogurt was cooling too quickly during the jarring process.

But I soon found a trick to make it work, inspired by Nigel Slater who wraps his jar in a towel with a hot water bottle. Into the cooler goes my hot water bottle to warm it up while I heat the milk. Once the jars are filled (smaller ones than I use in the summer) they go into the cool bag and I stuff the hot water bottle in the top before zipping it up and storing it in the airing cupboard for a few hours.

It’s a makeshift system, but it works, and we have a ready supply of organic yogurt that gets better and better with every generation. I reckon it takes about 20 minutes to make, then you just wait for the magic to happen. It’s that simple.

Here’s how we make it.

Homemade Yogurt

Makes 5 jam jars

2 pints organic milk (we use whole milk)

a small pot of organic live yogurt, at room temperature (the first time you make it, after that you can use a little of the previous batch)

You will need

sterilised jars (I use bigger ones in the summer, smaller in the winter)

thermometer (get one that clips to the side of your pan and adjust the height so that the tip is suspended in the milk and not touching the bottom of the pan. You’ll get a more accurate reading this way)

Pour about a centimetre of water into the base of a medium pan and bring to the boil. This will help prevent the milk sticking to the pan.

Pour in the milk and bring to 80˚C, then turn off the heat and cool to 43–45˚C. To speed up the process I fill the sink with a few inches of cold water and sit the pan in it to cool down.

As soon as the temperature hits 43–45˚C, spoon the live yogurt into the milk and give it a stir.

Quickly pour the mixture into the jars. (A wide funnel will help speed things up and lessen waste.) Transfer the sealed jars to a cool bag and leave for 5 or 6 hours to set. If your kitchen is cold you might want to store the bag in the airing cupboard with something warm inside (such as a hot water bottle, see above).

If you open your jars and find they’re only set in the middle, take the lids off and sit them in a pan of boiling water. Reheat until the yogurt reaches 43˚C and return to the cool bag. The texture might be a little grainier, but they should set all the way through.

There’s no need to buy more yogurt, simply save portions from each batch to make the next. Once your yogurt is set, scoop out a couple of tablespoons straight away and store them in a separate container ready for the next batch. You can also freeze this portion, but bring it back to room temperature before adding it to your milk.