Shanklish/ Shankleesh
Description
When I am short for time and feeling lazy or busy to cook, I reach out my fridge and throw together shanklish with diced tomatoes, onions, parsley and olive oil, so easy to jazz up, yet so satisfying. Make shanklish and keep in your refrigerator or freezer. It comes in handy for whipping a quick breakfast, lunch or dinner. The recipe is all about technique, supremely comforting.
Ingredients
- 4 kg / 8 lb. 14 oz. whole milk plain yogurt
- 1 1/2 tablespoons sea salt
- 8 tablespoons white vinegar
Seasoning:
- 2 leveled tablespoons salt or to taste
- 1 tablespoon papkrika optional, but recommended
- 1 tablespoon zaatar optional
- ½ teaspoon mahlab optional
Coating:
- Zaatar or Aleppo pepper/ Paprika
Instructions
- Over medium heat, place the yogurt in a large pot and stir all the time to prevent it from scorching. Bring to a boil and add the white vinegar and sea salt and turn the heat off. Leave it until it cools down. The yogurt will considerably curdle.
- Line a colander with a cheesecloth suspended over a large bowl and tip the mixture in the cheesecloth.
- Gather the cloth around the cheese. Put a heavy object on top of the curd to help exert pressure. Refrigerate for 24 hours, making sure to get rid of any excess liquid dripping every few hours. The mixture at this stage should be dry and hard enough to roll.
- Transfer the content in the cheesecloth to a bowl, the cheese, at this stage, should be firm and easy to work with. Add the seasoning: paprika, salt and mahlab, mix well to integrate with the cheese. Try a bite to see if you want to add more salt, it should be pretty obvious, since salt acts as a preservative.
- Lay strong and heavy kitchen paper towels on a flat tray.
- Using clean hands, shape and compress the strained curd to equal balls, roughly the size of a tennis ball, and transfer them to the tray lined with paper towels, leaving space between one another. I ended up with 7 balls. Cover them also with kitchen paper towels. The paper towels will absorb the moisture from the balls. Leave them to dry out in the sun for 6-7 days, or alternatively you can expose the cheese balls to ventilation or air condition during day time, control of air flow will draw moisture from the cheese balls and help dry out, making sure to change the paper towels whenever they get saturated, and by night refrigerate, that’s what I did. It may take 6 to seven days depending on the temperature and humidity.
- By now they should be completely dry. You can serve them right away, making sure to dip in olive oil and crust each with zaatar, oregano or paprika. Individually wrap with cling film and keep in your freezer. This is short aging where the taste is still mild; a well-aged shanklish will be more pungent, and less creamy. If you need the sharp shanklish taste, skip step 6 and keep on reading!
- To fully mature the shanklish: Shanklish should be totally dry, a good indication is when the paper towels feel dry to the touch. Transfer the cheese balls to a clean dry jar and keep away from sunlight, preferably a dark place for 1 month or even more to slowly ferment; check out the shanklish every now and then,
- Once the rots develop on the surface, then it is a sign the cheese has reached the maturation needed. Rinse under running water and scrape clean to remove the rots developed on the surface of the cheese balls, dry with paper towels and roll up individually with zaatar or Aleppo pepper or paprika.
- Keep in the fridge covered or individually wrap with cling film and keep in your freezer. A long process but believe me so worth it.
Notes
The most common way to eat shanklish is to crumble it, and mix it up with diced tomatoes, onions and freshly chopped parsley with a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Tear off pita bread/ Arabic bread and scoop it up with shanklish, I am over the moon happy! Seriously hard to resisit. Make sure to use the best olive oil quality.
- 1 shanklish ball
- 1 small onion
- 1 medium sized tomato
- 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, more if needed
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!