Kuymak

The cheese is beaten into the hot cornmeal until the whole pan pulls in strings.

Not vegetarian — contains cheese whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 80 g fine cornmeal
• 500 ml water
• 150 g butter
• 350 g fresh young stringy cheese, torn
• salt

to serve

• bread

Method

1. THE CHEESE IS BEATEN INTO THE HOT CORNMEAL UNTIL THE WHOLE PAN PULLS IN STRINGS. That stringing is the dish and it is the only test of it. Torn cheese goes into the cooked cornmeal and butter and is worked hard with a wooden spoon over a low heat -- not folded in gently. For the first minute it sits in lumps; then it melts and the mixture looks slack and oily; and then, worked on, it comes together and begins to pull, so that a spoon lifted from the pan draws long strands behind it. Three or four minutes of real effort. Stopped at the slack oily stage -- which is where it looks finished -- it is cheese sauce with cornmeal in it.
2. THE CHEESE MUST BE A FRESH YOUNG STRINGY ONE, NOT A HARD AGED CHEESE. A young unripened cheese that melts and stretches. An aged hard cheese will not string: its proteins have broken down too far, so it separates into oil and grains in the pan, and no amount of beating recovers it. This is the one ingredient with no substitute, and if what is available is a mature cheese the dish cannot be made.
3. THE CORNMEAL IS COOKED IN WATER FIRST, AND THERE IS NOT MUCH OF IT. Eighty grams to five hundred millilitres of water -- a thin porridge, not a polenta. It is the carrier, and the dish is overwhelmingly cheese and butter by weight. More cornmeal and it stiffens into a solid mass that will not string.
4. THERE IS A GREAT DEAL OF BUTTER AND IT IS NOT REDUCIBLE. A hundred and fifty grams to four people. It is what the cheese melts into and what keeps the mass fluid enough to stretch rather than set. Cut it down and the pan goes stiff and rubbery.
5. THE HEAT STAYS LOW ONCE THE CHEESE IS IN. Too hot and the cheese splits, releasing its fat, and the pan becomes grainy curds in oil. Low and slow, with constant work, is what brings it together.
6. IT IS SERVED FROM THE PAN AND EATEN AT ONCE WITH BREAD, NO CUTLERY. It sets as it cools and the stringing stops. The pan goes to the table and everyone scoops with bread from it directly.
7. The cornmeal whisked into the water and brought to the boil.
8. Cooked, whisking, 10 MINUTES to a THIN porridge. Salted lightly.
9. The butter added and stirred until melted.
10. The heat lowered to LOW.
11. The torn cheese added ALL AT ONCE.
12. BEATEN HARD with a wooden spoon 3 to 4 MINUTES. It will first look slack and oily -- KEEP GOING.
13. Continued until the mass COMES TOGETHER and a spoon lifted from the pan DRAWS LONG STRANDS.
14. TESTED: the spoon must pull strings. A slack oily pan means it was not beaten long enough; grainy curds in oil mean the heat was too high or the cheese too mature.
15. Taken to the table IN THE PAN and eaten at once, scooped with bread.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Turkey · All recipes