There’s a white china bowl in the fridge and over it a sieve lined with new muslin in which thick yogurt has been sitting overnight. The yogurt has released its thin, silvery whey and has thickened to a point where you could spread it like cream cheese. Sometimes I put salt in it, on other occasions I leave it as it is. Unsweetened, I take full advantage of that mound of curds at breakfast, slathering it thickly over toast then piling it with berries.
Salted (I use ½ tsp per 500g of yogurt), the flavour has sharpened overnight, too, a lively, spirited sourness similar to how natural yogurt used to taste before commerce turned it into a sweet, bland dessert. This strained yogurt, the labneh beloved of the Middle East, is easy enough to make at home, though probably cheaper to buy if you live near a Middle Eastern food shop.
I stirred pomegranate molasses through some recently, letting the syrup lend its curious mixture of sweetness and sourness to the creamy labneh. We ate it with lamb cutlets hot from the grill.
Like its softer, more liquid ancestor, labneh likes fresh herbs, especially mint leaves and dill. Roughly torn, crisp-crusted bread, spread with labneh then scattered with chopped parsley, dill and basil, is both gorgeous and humble.
At the other end of dinner this thick yogurt can be served with a glossy dollop of honey, a spoonful of rose-petal jelly or apricot jam, or with a bowl of berries. It can also be flavoured. Lemon curd produces a bracing cream for sponge cake. Vanilla seeds, the stickier the better, will turn your labneh into a dessert as tempting as a bowl of ice cream.
Grilled lamb with labneh and blackberry sauce
The labneh will take a little more of the molasses if you like: just keep tasting as you go. This recipe works well with pork chops, too, and blueberries instead of the blackberries.
For the labneh:
yogurt 400g
pomegranate molasses 1 tbsp
mint 10 leaves
feta 100g
For the cutlets:
lamb cutlets 6
olive oil
coriander seeds 1 tsp
black peppercorns 8
thyme a few sprigs
For the sauce:
cassis 5 tbsp
caster sugar 2 tbsp
red wine vinegar 2 tsp
blackberries 150g
Place a sieve over a mixing bowl, line it with muslin then tip in the yogurt and set aside in the fridge overnight.
To make the sauce, put the cassis, caster sugar and vinegar in a stainless steel or enamel saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir in the blackberries and continue cooking for 2 or 3 minutes until the fruit softens a little and gives up its juices. Season very lightly with salt and set aside.
Warm a grill or griddle. Rub the cutlets with a little olive oil. Grind the coriander seeds and peppercorns with a pestle and mortar to a coarse powder, then mix in a couple of generous pinches of sea salt flakes. Remove the leaves from the thyme and add to the spice mixture. Rub the seasoning over the cutlets, then cook them on the griddle or under the grill until they are sizzling and golden, their inside a deep rose pink. Exact times will vary according to your heat and how you like your lamb, but reckon on 3 or 4 minutes per side – maybe a little longer if, like me, you like your fat crisp.
Transfer the strained yogurt to a bowl, then stir in the pomegranate molasses. Finely chop the mint and stir into the mixture together with a little black pepper. Crumble in the feta and gently combine.
Pile a generous spoonful of the pomegranate yogurt on each plate, place the hot cutlets on top then spoon over the warm blackberry sauce.
Vanilla yogurt with blueberry sauce and brioche crumbs
Any sweet bread will do. You could use croissants or panettone if you have them. Failing that, use crumbs from a white loaf and add a little more sugar. The point is to offer a sweet and lightly crisp contrast to the softness of the vanilla bean labneh. Serves 3.
For the yogurt:
yogurt 400g
vanilla pod 1
For the fruit:
blueberries 250g
sugar 3 tbsp
water 250ml
apricot jam 2 heaped tbsp
For the brioche crumbs:
brioche or other sweet bread 75g
butter 50g
caster sugar 1 tbsp
Put the yogurt into a muslin-lined sieve over a mixing bowl and leave overnight. The next day, split the vanilla pod in half lengthways and scrape out the sticky black seeds with the point of a knife. Fold them into the strained yogurt and return to the fridge.
Put the blueberries into a small pan with the sugar and water and bring to the boil. As soon as the water is bubbling, stir in the apricot jam and simmer for 2 or 3 minutes until the berries have burst and you have a deep purple sauce.
Tear the brioche into small crumbs. Melt the butter in a shallow pan. When it sizzles, add the crumbs and the sugar and toss together gently over the heat, stirring for a minute or two until the crumbs smell sweet and buttery and are starting to crisp.
Place spoonfuls of the vanilla yogurt on dishes, spoon over the hot blueberry sauce then scatter with the warm, toasted crumbs.
Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @NigelSlater
