Something pristine, something white. A white sheet screaming to add things to it. Is it the burrata on every menu, all the way from Puglia to be the new ‘expat’ cheese in our westerner’s kitchen? Nope, there is another new old kid in town. Labneh is taking the same road straight to our hipster plates (the same road that hummus took too). And of course I’m indebted, as my deepest love for this creamy salty strained yoghurt meets cheese spans more than a decade. And started at the place of origin the Middle East. Time to clear up the labneh thing!
some labneh background….The magic of the invention of labneh happened when there wasn’t everything available like now, including a fridge. Solutions to situations! As it usual goes with great culinary inventions. When you live in a hot climate you either make cheese from your milk, or it turns sour into yoghurt, which you add salt in order to keep it longer. Ok so far for the important news: it’s a very very old way of eating dairy in Levante region dating back thousands of years. Clever stuff!
Labneh memories
There is much romance to labneh too. It’s how people consume dairy daily in the Levante world. Labneh or better laban – yoghurt in Arabic- in clean old t shirts are hanging and dripping it’s tears of whey in the sink. It is a beautiful childhood memory for everyone who grew up in a Levante household. I wrote in my cookbook Beirut, about this same kind of labneh memory Jade George told me (the editor and publisher of favorite Lebanese magazine The Carton). My daughter will have her own labneh memories one day.
Homemade
Even though now it’s readily available in many shops worldwide, i have not found any that is as good as when i do my own. It’s extremely good with so many things I just always want to have a jar in the fridge. To eat it the classic way, next to or into some fresh flatbread, cucumber, tomato, some fresh herbs on the side and maybe a sprinkle of za’atar on top (or some dried mint but never really more than that). Or just plain next to a meal with a veggie stew or some fried eggs. Always on any mezze table and with any morning man’ouche (za’atar flatbread).
Try different yoghurts!
Sometimes I use cow yoghurt, sometimes sheep or goat. The better the yoghurt (fresh from a farm!) the better your labneh. And I advise you really to add enough salt: the yoghurt should taste really salty. Use cheese muslin or a clean thin kitchen cloth washed with natural soap. You can hang it straight from a hook above the sink or let it sit in a colander onto a bowl or pan. Few hours or a whole night, depending on how thick you want it to be. I like mine medium, 4-5 hours, but depending on how i want to use it and what kind of yoghurt i used. A thin yoghurt will take longer.
But today I’m not having it plain. My friend Salma from Gaza is coming for dinner and we’ll be making her Gazan shrimp dish (which I will share soon too!) and since she is from Gaza, she knows how to enjoy big flavours. Gazans love their peppers & spices so much! So to please her, I ‘m giving my labneh another make-up today, to have it as a side dish next to her dish.
I will dress it with orange and coriander and to spice things up the Gazan way I will stir into the labneh red pepper flakes, and on top a fresh green pepper shatta (the Palestinian hot sauce). A true Eastern Mediterranean feast to the max. Actually now that I’m writing this, next to my sunny balcony I can’t wait to enjoy all of this!!!
Maybe you could just grill some fish and shrimps next to this, and have it with fresh flatbread.
Gazan inspired labneh with orange, fried coriander, red pepper and lemony shatta
1 kg yoghurt
salt
1 green pepper
juice of ½ lemon
1/2 tsp of cumin seeds
½ tsp of coriander seeds
1 tbs of red pepper flakes
4 garlic cloves
1 bunch of coriander
½ organic orange
handful of toasted pistachio.
1 Add 1 tbsp of salt to the yoghurt and stir well. Put in a muslin or clean kitchen cloth in a colander and leave to strain for some hours, 3-4 hours or more for a thicker labneh.
2 Chop finely the green pepper, discard seeds and mix in kitchen machine or with handheld mixer with the lemon juice and coriander seeds and some salt. This is your shatta. Keep aside.
3 Mix the red pepper flakes into the amount of labneh you will use. Add more if you like it really spicy. There is also the shatta later!
4 Chop finely the garlic. And roughly chop the coriander, including stalks
5 Heat some olive oil, fry garlic until golden, add the coriander until just wilted.
6 Slice 2 slices of the orange, including the rind and chop up. Mix by using the pulse button until you have a rough mixture.
7 Divide the labneh on a plate, add the coriander, orange and drizzle with shatta and olive oil. Sprinkle with some toasted pistachio.
Some more labneh love
-sprinkle with roasted nuts, cucumber cubes, chopped fresh mint and olive oil for a quick lunch with some flatbread.
-use labneh into your baking. In my Café Mazahar cookbook there is a recipe for a labneh cheesecake
-use labneh for desserts, scattered with fruits nuts and other sweet things. Sweet and salty!
- use labneh inside flatbread sandwiches.