Skyr with berries

Ingredients

• Skimmed milk4 l
• Skyr or yoghurt as starter100 g
• Rennet2 pinch
• Bilberries400 g
• Cream — to serve150 ml
• Sugar60 g
• Rolled oats — to serve100 g

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Heat the milk to 85 °C, stirring, and hold it ten minutes without letting it boil.

   20 min

2. 2

   Cool the milk to 40 °C by standing the pot in cold water.

   20 min

3. 3

   Slacken the starter with a ladle of the warm milk and stir it back into the pot.

   5 min

4. 4

   Add the rennet, stir for a few seconds and cover the pot.

   3 min

5. 5

   Leave it somewhere warm for twelve hours, until the mass sets into a firm curd.

   10 min

6. 6

   Turn the curd into a cloth and hang it over a bowl for six hours to drain the whey.

   15 min

7. 7

   Whisk the skyr smooth and serve it with bilberries, cream and oats.

   10 min

About the dish

Skyr is technically a cheese rather than a yoghurt: it is made with rennet and strained of its whey. Four litres of milk yield one litre of skyr.

The milk is heated to 85 °C and cooled to 40 °C before the culture goes in. The first heating denatures the protein and gives density; the second is what the cultures need to work.

It is strained through cloth for six hours or longer. The longer it hangs the thicker it gets: Icelandic skyr should hold a spoon upright.

Worth knowing

• — Do not throw away the whey. In Iceland it is drunk or used in place of water in bread — it is sour and nourishing.
• — A thermometer is essential. Overheated milk gives grainy skyr; underheated milk never sets at all.
• — The thickness is set by the draining time. Six hours gives a thick skyr, twelve gives something close to cream cheese.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

220 kcal

Protein

20 g

Fat

6 g

Carbs

22 g

More from Iceland

• Plokkfiskur — Flaked boiled fish mashed with potato in a white sauce. Icelandic home cooking made from leftovers.
• Kjötsúpa — A clear lamb soup with root vegetables and barley. One pot, four ingredients, three hours.
• Icelandic rye bread — A sweet dark rye bread baked in a sealed tin for twelve hours at a low temperature.