We are honored when our customers share their recipes for cheese with us and even more so when the recipes come from halfway around the world.
We couldn’t find a single recipe for Ekshimik in English online. There is, however, one recipe for feta which mentions that it can be used as a substitute for Ekshimik.
We want to thank Dr. Cilasun for sharing this recipe with us.
Dr. Cilasun’s Story
I am a doctor of dental medicine and orthodontics. But, now I am retired and concerned with my hobbies. I was born in Istanbul/Turkey.
I got my orthodontic credentials at the University of Hamburg/Germany (UKE) and later I opened my first office in Germany. After 8 years, I went with my whole family to Istanbul and opened my second office there. Now, since 2015, my wife, Ingrid, and I have been living as pensioners in Hamburg/Germany. My wife supports me highly in this wonderful hobby.
I am a collector, photographer and I started with the milk adventures in the 90’s – first with yogurt, then with ricotta and quark and finally with diverse cheeses.
In the beginning, I learned cheese making through a Turkish book about almost all the cheeses in Asia Minor. It was titled Süt uyuduğunda, “As the Milk Sleeps.”
Unfortunately, the recipes were very primitive and simply described in this book, since they were originally from farmers telling them without measurements, etc.
At the beginning of the 2000’s, I found the great book by Ricki Carroll – “Home Cheese Making” (in the English language) and that was when it all “clicked.”
Now, almost every Sunday, I try to make another kind of cheese based on the nice recipes of Jim Wallace. I am an amateur and use only little batches of German certified, bio-dynamic milk. I am proud to be able to make almost 90% of the cheeses on the table for us and our guests.
Turkey is a big country, as you know and there are hundreds of cheeses and hundreds of cheese recipes. People in every single corner of the country (small towns and regions) serve their own cheeses.
Of course, there are very popular flagships among this quantity and those are more wanted in the marketplace than the others.
Today, I want to share with you a recipe for a cheese without milk, rennet, press, aging place, etc. (woooow!) This is actually not a cheese as we know it.
Nomadic people live in tents with their whole family and animals (goats and sheep) on the Turkish high plateau. They produce their own yogurt, cheese, butter and the Ekshimik, Coekelek, Kurut, etc. cheeses (side products of yogurt and butter).
These people make butter, often from yogurt fat (sour cream butter), in big, wooden horizontal shakers. After the butter making is finished, they have the side product, buttermilk, in their containers. This is then consumed as a refreshing drink (Ayran) and the rest is used to make a kind of cheese called Ekshimik or Coekelek. This is dried for conservation and given to the shepherds for food – beside a piece of bread on the road.
Super Simple Recipe for Ekshimik
This is a kind of sour, ricotta-like product. You can let it dry like ricotta salata.
Ingredients:
1 quart (kg) of fresh organic buttermilk (fat 1%)
1/2 tsp sea salt
4 1/4 cups (1L) water
Equipment:
Stove (very little heat)
Pot
Ladle
Butter muslin
Directions:
Mix the ingredients together in a pot.
Heat to 194F (90C).
Take off the stove and let cool to 104-113F (40-45C).
Scoop the curds into butter muslin and sprinkle 1/2 tsp salt on it.
Hang overnight or up to 24 hours, depending on how dry you want it to be.
If you wish, add 2% additional salt, black pepper, thyme, a pinch of ascorbic acid for preserving, etc.
Hatice Dilek says
Merhaba Ceyhun bey
Bende peynir yapmaya basladim. Cok ilgimi cekiyor degisik peynirler yapmak . Sizin paylasiminiz cok harika. Kolay gelsin . Selamlar .
Ricki Carroll says
Thank you so much for your willingness to share your endeavors with our readers. Your sharing helps make our dreams of a world wide cheese family come to life. It is always through others that our world expands and brightens. You have certainly added a lot to my day. çok teşekkür ederim!
Dr. Ceyhun Cilasun says
Hi friend,
Thank You for your interest for this very simple receipe of an important food for the turkish poor-shepards on the deepest countryside for whole four seasons abroad. If you let dry this curd totaly, you can keep it over very long time without any moldings etc.
So you could use it for your pasta or green salad instead of parmesan or grana padano cheese .
I prefere it to let dry until a creamy consistence ( Philadelphia ) with 2% of Atlantic salt, a pinch of citric acid (preservative agent) and a piece of fresh chives or dry thyme or hot chilly powder . You can improvise your own way to optimise it for your special taste. If you have some more questions , please dont hesitate to write me.
Keep in touch ..
Regards
-Ceyhun-
Rabbit Goody says
So, In the original tradition how was the buttermilk cultured? Was the buttermilk from making butter or was it more like developed Kiefer? Was it primarily sheeps milk or goats milk? I am going to try this tonight and I will be using cow milk with buttermilk culture to start wish me luck I’ll let you know how it turns out.I have friend from turkey and I want to make some for him.
thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I am very interested in vernacular cheese methods and recipes. I try to compare how different cultures handle milk preserving traditionally and then how it morphs into a more commercial culture and how to get back to the roots of the vernacular product. This was very helpful.