Kefir - my new pet

I do have a reason for not posting for a while. I’ve been busy getting to know and experiment with a new food called kefir. I now feel confident after working with it on a daily basis (and even travelling with it) for nearly six months to pass on to you my discoveries about kefir.

You will have to forgive the bland photography in this post but it’s hard to make a white liquid look colourful. Here is my jar of kefir at the start of the fermenting process.

Looking after kefir is a little like having a pet. It can’t be left alone for too long and needs regular feeding. It’s quite easy to become a little obsessed about it.

My kefir story starts in December 2014 when I mentioned to my friend Sue that I wanted to introduce more fermented food into our diet.  We talked about how foods that have undergone a fermenting process will improve gut health… and it’s widely recognised that the gut plays a vital role in general health.  Sue suggested Kefir as a good starting point and next time we met, she gave me some Kefir milk grains.  I gladly accepted these grains knowing absolutely nothing about Kefir, but willing to learn.

Here is kefir after fermentation. It looks just like a pouring yoghurt.

Kefir (pronounced keh-fear) is a yoghurt like fermented milk product which comprises a mix of probiotic bacteria and yeasts.  Unlike yoghurt, kefir has a slight effervescence, which comes from these ‘good guy bugs’ doing fermenting work.  In fact the biggest difference between the taste of natural yoghurt and kefir is the slight yeasty smell and taste. I don’t mind the yeasty flavour at all… because I know that these kefir yeasts are ‘friendly’ and wage war on any harmful yeasts hanging out in my gut.

I can now easily drink kefir straight, but until you get used to the sourness I suggest you add some sweetener like maple syrup or a dash of cordial. It doesn’t take long to just enjoy it straight.

The fundamental difference between yoghurt and kefir is that yoghurt is made up of up of a handful of good bacteria that feed the good bacteria in your digestive tract.  But, they are only transient and their benefits will only last 24 hours.  Kefir has a mix of transient and colonising good bacteria and yeasts (or probiotics) that continue to keep working in your gut fighting bad bacteria (pathogens), especially in the bowel. The longer you ferment kefir the more astringent and thick it becomes and it will have more probiotics present.

This is a blackcurrant, honey and banana oat smoothie using kefir and some rolled oats soaked overnight. I use whatever fruit I have and with the oats you have a breakfast in a drink. It’s also the best way to get my Grandson Beau to drink kefir.

At first I couldn’t easily drink a glass of kefir straight so my first kefir experience was in a kefir smoothie… it was delicious!

Kefir was has been used for well over 2000 years.   Marco Polo wrote about it as being part of the diet of the people in the Caucasus mountain region that separates Europe from Asia. Kefir grains were a safe way of preserving milk before refrigeration.  It preserved milk by the introduction of 30-60 different probiotic bacteria and it was said those who drank it twice a day lived long, disease free lives. You wonder why it has taken so long for the good news about Kefir’s magical health properties to reach beyond Northern Europe, Russia and Eurasia. Apparently Kefir was only introduced to the United States by Russia at the end of the Cold War.

I cover my jar with some cheese cloth and secure it with a rubber band.

Unlike yoghurt you don’t need an even heat for the fermentation process.  Kefir fermentation is done on the bench top out of the sun. Ideally cover it with a cheesecloth to keep out stray insects… rather than cover with a lid as it’s fermenting gases will accumulate. In the heat of summer I was making kefir in less than 24 hours but now in winter it can take two days.  

Kefir is like a sour dough starter or ginger beer bug – once you receive the grains it needs to be fed with fresh milk to survive.

Kefir grains look a bit like rice pudding or cauliflower and the best way to obtain them is from a kefir making friend.  Anyone who is making kefir,  will have an embarrassment of kefir grains after just a couple of weeks of fermenting.  If you don’t know of anyone who can pass them on free then you can find them online in New Zealand at Natural Abundance. Their site has plenty of good information and follow their instructions carefully to activate the grains.

Kefir grains are fascinating. I unfurled one of the grains to discover they stretch out flat. Some grains can get quite large.

The method I describe below is using activated kefir grains that you might receive from a friend already in a jar with some milk. For each daily ferment, I use about 1 Tbsp of grains to about two cups of milk. This is a lower ratio than some others suggest but I try to avoid the fermentation from being too rapid because I can easily get an oversupply of Kefir.

This is the amount of grains I use to about 2 cups of milk.

I use a one litre preserving jar that I fill to just over half way. The good news is you don’t have to be that fussy with measurements when it comes to kefir. As they ferment they increase in volume so it’s good to give kefir a bit of elbow room. I use whole milk as it produces a thicker kefir but any type of milk is fine except for lactose-free milk.  The ideal is organic whole milk and you can use goat or sheep milk as well. The kefir feeds on the lactose in milk.. which is good news for anyone who is lactose sensitive or intolerant, in fact for any of us, as lactose can be difficult to digest.

So, here we go.  This brew has just begun fermenting.

You can see the top of the milk just starting to solidify.

After 12 hours or so, you will begin to see air spaces in the fermenting milk.  This increases until the fermentation is complete, after about 16-24 hours  and looks like the picture below.

There will be separation occuring but not enough for the whey to be separated from the curds as below.

There is nothing wrong if your kefir does have separation like above, it will just be less creamy and taste tart. The tartness also indicates that the kefir has eaten more of the milk sugars, so those with a lactose intolerance wanting to try kefir should wait until the whey separates like this before consuming.

I am using a stainless steel sieve. It’s supposed to be a “no no” to use metal with kefir grains but this rule was made at a time when metals were reactive and there would be a chemical reaction when the two met. Stainless steel is non reactive. I haven’t found my kefir suffering at all with the use of my  sieve.

Now that your kefir has begun to separate, its time to separate the grains from the thickened fermented milk. Tip out the contents of your jar into a sieve over top of a glass bowl and gently use a non metal spatula or spoon to gently separate the liquid from the grains.  What is in the bowl is now processed Kefir and can used right away.

If you want your Kefir with more effervescence and maximum goodness then you can give it a second ferment.  This means just leaving the strained kefir out on the bench top for another 6 to 12 hours.  This second ferment is not necessary – it’s optional.

Donna Schwenk’s Cultured Food Life video is well worth looking at for extra information and other processes using kefir grains.  Donna has quite a few videos on You Tube and if you have food allergies you might like to listen to her story on how her family got rid of allergies through eating fermented or cultured food.

On the left is the kefir cream, centre the whey and right, the kefir grains ready to have more milk added and another fermentation.

Sometimes I want the curds and whey separated so that I can easily drain off the whey and kept in a bottle in the fridge. Whey can have a number of uses in the kitchen and garden…but that’s another story. The remaining solid can then be sieved to remove the grains and what remains is what I call kefir cream – the consistency of sour cream or thick Greek yoghurt. The cream is easier to work with if I wanted to make a kefir dressing.

This dressing is excellent for potato salad. You can use the thinner pouring kefir as well but just add a tsp of tahini and leave to thicken before using.

When you are away from home your kefir is happy to chill for up to two weeks in your fridge.

If you are away for more than one week you should give it plenty of milk to feed on. Kefir slows down in the cold and once you are home just pop it out on the bench and it will start to activate again.

Another magic feature of kefir is that it can improve your baking.  Use kefir where you would use buttermilk in recipes. I used kefir instead of buttermilk in Yotam Ottolenghi’s Skillet Cornbread recipe.

There is a lightness in baking made with kefir so I use it in any recipes that have milk in them. I have tried it with my favourite recipes for scones, oat pancakes and Nan’s pikelets.

Nan’s pickles were lighter in texture using kefir instead of milk. Topped with my St Mary’s Crabapple Jelly.

A delightful advocate of kefir on You Tube is Katrine Rudolph from Denmark. Katrine milks her own Jersey cow and makes her kefir from raw milk.

Kefir once discovered is something many want to share on You Tube videos. I, too have been most enthusiastic about my new pet subject kefir… perhaps telling friends and family more than they really want to know.

For me kefir has been a wonderful start in my journey to discover more about fermented food.

 This posting has been copied from my new site: Jeannieskitchen.me

Hot Potatoes, Cold Potatoes and Maori Potatoes

My niece Sarah was my advisor when it came to decorating my potato salad mountain for a barbecue dinner with the family in Napier. I have discovered that potato salad is particularly good to eat if you are consuming bbq meats....more on why later

"Pick em up, pick em up hot potatoes...."  Mart would chant and whistle on our back steps on Christmas day while carefully cleaning and scraping the new potatoes for lunch.  Potatoes have been cultivated for 2000 years but my first connection with new potatoes was at Christmas time when I was a child.  Every Christmas my great aunt and uncle, Nell and Mart, would arrive at our farm on Christmas Eve with freshly dug Jersey Bennies (new potatoes) from the Taieri Plains just outside Dunedin. To this day someone in the family is appointed to be "Marty" and prepare the new potatoes for Christmas lunch - and whistling is encouraged.

Cooking Hint: For a big occasion when timing could be problematic then you can pre-cook half an hour before your guests arrive. Test with a fork and when nearly done quickly drain off the water, add some butter, take off the stove top and wrap in a towel...pot and all. The potatoes will keep hot for ages this way and the remaining heat will ensure the potatoes will be perfectly cooked when eaten.

You know if your new potato is freshly dug - just rub the skin with your finger and if it peels off it means the potato hasn't long been out of the ground.  This is one of the main reasons you want to grow at least some new potatoes in your own garden.

New potatoes if really fresh are best simply prepared and presented. Gently boil with a sprig of mint and salt until tender and then for serving add butter or olive oil drizzled over them and a fresh sprig or two of mint for decoration.  My friend Heather from Whangarei Heads recently presented her freshly dug new potatoes with the delicious addition of finely chopped preserved lemon and chopped parsley.

The Jersey Bennie is a variety that is specifically grown as a new potato. New potatoes are harvested as soon as they start the flower and if you are lucky this could be in time for Christmas.  Although, if you are careful, you can do some "robbing" before you harvest.  If you want potatoes that will keep over the winter then you need to allow them to grow until autumn and harvest once all the foliage has died away.  These are called main crop potatoes.

Kerry grew her early Swift potatoes in tyres.

Funnily enough when potatoes were first introduced in Europe late 16th century from South America they were viewed with suspicion and considered "evil food".  In Scotland  people refused to eat them because potatoes were not mentioned in the Bible.

Well our Scottish ancestors may have had misgivings about this exotic import but in the Mackay family the arrival of new potatoes are so looked forward to that we have just had to make it competitive to see who can grow the best potatoes for Christmas? My sister Kerry easily won the potato growing competition in 2014 with her Swift potatoes.

Swifts (as their name suggests) are a fast growing new potato variety that can be ready for harvest in 60 days so are a good option if you are aiming for an early summer harvest.

Kerry was able to do some "robbing" of her Swift potatoes back on the 9th of December by gently lifting the mulch and picking a sample. This gentle robbing will allow the plant to continue to grow and once they start to flower you know it's time to dig up your new potatoes.

My entry into the Mackay potato growing competition was woeful this year.  I have had to rely on our Sanctuary Community garden for our supply of fresh new potatoes.

The Community garden decided to grow Swift potatoes because of the short growing period and we were allocated on Christmas week 2  kilo bags of potatoes in return for the time we gave to the community portion of the gardens. Delicious the Swifts were too!

Four rows of Swift potatoes in early November on the left and the earlier planted Maori potato varieties at Sanctuary Community Garden.

Before the Swifts three varieties of Maori potatoes were harvested as young potatoes at the gardens.  Space is at a premium in our community growing areas so we grew new potatoes not main crop.

There is no one name in Maori language for the ancient potatoes grown here and the varieties are various as they have been selected and grown by families for generations.   Taewa is one name and when translated means "foreigner" that hints at its origin.  So where did Maori potatoes come from?

Three varieties of Maori potato that were grown at Sanctuary Gardens: top Kowiniwini, left Maori potato and right perhaps the most common variety Urenika.

In the later part of the 18th century explorers, Captain Cook from England and Marion du Fresne from France, stopped long enough in New Zealand to set up gardens that grew potatoes and other European vegetables. Maori, unlike the Scottish a century earlier, soon realised  potatoes were easier to grow and produced a higher yield than the Kumera (sweet potato) they brought from Polynesia. The arrival of the potato replaced the only other form of starch the fern root.

Potatoes were also introduced to New Zealand directly from South America via sailors and whalers.  New Zealand Maori potatoes therefore have a much stronger genetic base making them stronger and more resistant to disease and fungal infections ... like that which caused the potato blight in Europe in the 1840s. In Europe all the potatoes actually came from a few potato varieties. So when the potato blight hit in Europe there was little resistance and the potato crops were devastated.

Not only are they more disease resistant they have a higher nutritional value.

Researchers at the Riddet Institute in Palmerston North have discovered that Maori potatoes have different attributes to modern potato varieties, which makes them useful for developing new food products.  When testing four varieties of Maori potato against the modern potato Nadine they found,

"Overall, taewa have more antioxidants than modern Nadine potatoes (for example, 6-10 times more in the case of Tūtaekurī). Antioxidants are thought to protect cells from damage and may reduce the risk of cancer and slow the effects of ageing. Taewa are also rich in essential amino acids, minerals and anthocyanins. The skin of all the cultivars has higher protein, fat, minerals and dietary fibre than the flesh. All four cultivars showed significant nutritional advantages over the modern potato, Nadine."  http://biotechlearn.org.nz  

The potatoes before being put in the oven. You can vary the flavouring - a favourite of mine is to put in unpeeled garlic cloves.

I have found Maori potatoes are far better cooked in the oven than boiled.  They tend to disintegrate when boiled.  I also like using the following method of baking with any new potato variety as I think it brings out the earthiness of the potato.

Place washed potatoes into an oven dish, slice half a lemon into segments and place on top, Add some mint leaves and I like to also add a couple of bay tree leaves. Season with salt and pepper and either dot with butter as I have above or your favourite oil.  Cover with foil and cook in an oven for around 50 minutes at 180 Celsius.

The cooked potatoes do loose some of the intense colour - all except for the purple sausage shaped Urenika.

Cooking time varies depending on the number of potatoes  and how they are stacked in a dish - single layer being quicker than layers.

I really enjoyed the Kowiniwini variety with its medium deepest eyes, and is distinctive with its yellow patches of skin.  The potato has a purple-red skin but the fleshy is creamy white.

The variety simply called Maori potato is quite similar to other modern varieties in appearance and it has shallow eyes and a uniform round shape.  The only real difference is the rough texture of the pinky-red skin.

The Urenika is probably the most commonly planted variety of Maori Potato simply because it's a real survivor as you will soon find out if you grow any in your garden.  The purple skinned knobbly sausage-like tubers will persist in the ground for long periods and this is the potato that you can still find growing in the wild probably in old abandoned Maori occupation sites.  The potato plants have purple stems and white flowers with grey in the centre of the petals.  It is a very floury potato with purple flesh.  If you keep them for a while before cooking they are less floury.  The Urenika is probably similar to the Purple Congo that is cultivated in Australia and used by the Italian community to make gnocchi (potato pasta).

So for you gnocchi lovers out there why not try the Urenika.

I did have some leftover potatoes cooked this way and was pleased to see they did keep their shape when cut old into a salad the next day.

I have only recently learn't that cold potatoes are really good for you.  I have never been a fan of potato salad but since learning that it is a very healthy option I have decided to perfect my potato salad recipe.  Cold potato is especially good for you if you are eating red meat and a barbecue is probably the setting where you are most probably going to find a potato salad lurking.

So what is the difference between a hot potato and a cold potato?

When a potato cools down much of the potato starch turns into "resistant" starch.  Resistant starch is not digested in your stomach or absorbed in the small intestine but passes into your large intestine, where it becomes food for a host of beneficial bacteria ... these starches will also line and strengthen the walls of the colon.

The trouble I have with potato salad is that it's such a boring unappetising colour so I decided to make a potato salad mountain and decorate it with other salad vegetables for a recent family barbecue.

Green additions can be any herb such as parsley, coriander, basil or chopped chives. A nasturium always adds colour and a feel of summer. This variety is called "Empress of India" - it is supposed to be red but its a very dark orange. The good thing about this nasturtium is that it has a compact habit so is good for those that don't have room for the rambling standard nasturium.

For a quick dinner I wouldn't go to these lengths  but I would always have some green in the dressing and pop on a colourful edible flower. At our barbecue young Julie who is 6 really loved the peppery flavour of the nasturtium.

Cook the potatoes ahead of time so they can cool down before eating. They don't need to be chilled but do need to be cold. Cook them with their skins on as it helps keep them together and besides a lot of nutrients in potatoes are in the skin.

Osprey potatoes I purchased at the Tauranga Farmers Market. I am always keen to try a different variety of potato and these Osprey with their pink eyes were intriguing. I later found out that the soft moist texture makes them an ideal potato salad candidate.

There are two camps of opinion when it comes to how to dress your potato salad - whether you use an oil and vinegar based dressing ... or a creamy dressing.  Around the same time that I discovered cold potato was good for your gut health I was given some Kefir grains to produce the fermented milk product Kefir that is also great for promoting gut health.  I will follow up with a posting dedicated to kefir and if you haven't got kefir on hand you can just use yoghurt for this dressing.

I bought the Arataki clover runny honey en route from Tauranga to Napier as I thought it would come in handy for the Christmas catering and it has been great for sweetening the kefir and for dressings.

Kefir, Yoghurt and Mustard Dressing

One cup of Kefir (you can just use yoghurt instead)

3 Tbsp of Yoghurt

2 tsp Tahini paste

one garlic clove crushed and made into a puree in some salt

1 tsp grainy whole mustard

1-2 tsp of honey - add one at a time and taste

1-2 Tbsp of your favourite oil.

Shake and mix - taste and see if you need more honey. Kefir is tart and acid so you may need 2tsp of honey if using kefir or a particularly tart yoghurt.

Here I have just added the garlic that has been crushed with salt to become liquid. This is optional but I love garlic and especially now that new season's garlic is around.

The tahini is the thickening agent as kefir is the consistency of cream - just using a tsp or two will not give you a dominating flavour of sesame.  I add yoghurt to get a creamy taste and texture. If using all this dressing in one go then you can also chop in herbs. To give an aniseed flavour, chop up a small amount of tarragon (no more than one sprig).  Parsley is a great addition and you can use lots of parsley.  I have also used fresh coriander and a good pinch of ground cumin. Flavour it however you like. If you are using just yoghurt you may wish to either grate some lemon zest or add a squeeze of lemon to give it more zing.

This dressing can be used for any salad ... not just potato.  It's a healthier option to replace a mayonnaise dressing and everyone in the family enjoyed it in combination with the potato.

The Maori gardeners became excellent cultivators of the potato and soon began trading their surplus potatoes to our growing cities and to Australia.  The early European settlers would have relied on these potatoes for food until they could establish home gardens. In the US Thanksgiving remembers the kindness of Native Americans who provided starving settlers with food. Pumpkin and turkey are part of their Thanksgiving celebration meals, but perhaps in New Zealand we should give thanks to the early Maori gardeners and the potato affectionately called "the spud".

Most of the information on the history of the potato in Europe and the Maori potato here was from the published work of  "Nga Riwai Maori - Maori Potatoes" by Graham Harris and Poai Pakeha Niha" funded by NZ Open Polytechnic.