Today I want to share with you my Kishek making journey over the past...
January 22, 2020 by sahtein_lebanesefeasts
Today I want to share with you my Kishek making journey over the past week. Many of you have been messaging me and asking about the ingredients and the process. I can tell you one thing for sure, all the hard work and the sweat that went into this process is dedicated to all those village woman, in my beautiful homeland lebanon, who used to gather around on their flat rooftops during the hot summer days making Kishek “with love” for their families.
The sun is at its prime and the days are hot as the immaculate white sheets are laid out on the long tables in my backyard. I have spent the past week boiling milk, waiting for it to be the right temperature before setting it to make yogurt. Once this process was complete, labneh was made out of a large portion of the yogurt by placing it in a white material bag and hanging it out to strain overnight ridding it of any excess fluid.
The next few days were spent mixing yogurt with fine cracked wheat and then letting it soak overnight. The following day the mixture was put through an electric mincer and the labneh and salt were added to the blend whilst mixing the ingredients with both hands. The wet Kishek was then placed in the white material bag and left out for 2 days to ferment. The Kishek was then ready to be laid out to dry by spreading the mixture evenly out in small clumps on the white sheets. If the weather is not Kishek weather you may leave the mixture in the fridge for about a week. The Kishek will need about 8 hours in the hot sun to fully dry. “We have to wake up early enough to lay out the Kishek #كشك in time for the northerly wind” my mother used to say, which meant waking up around 5am. I never asked her what the northerly wind had to do with it but I’m guessing it helped the mixture dry out a lot quicker. Once the clumps dried out they were put through the mincer again and then through a Sieve. The result was a powder form of Kishek which required another day in the sun to completely dry out the fine grains then stored in glass jars in the freezer ready to cook into a soup and feast on during the cold winter months. Continued in comments.
by sahtein_lebanesefeasts / Instagram