France and the Alps · Volume 12, Choucroute, Bière de Garde and the Double Border
Bibeleskaes
Alsace
Illustration
- Time
- 10 minutes
- Researched
- 10 sources cited
The name, in dialect, literally means "little chicks' cheese." Sources are explicit that the exact ratio of cream, garlic and pepper varies by household: "each person prepares it their own way."
As tradition built it
Serves 4 as a side or light dish. 10 minutes.
Ingredients
- 800 g fromage blanc
- 200 g thick cream
- 10 g salt
- 1 g pepper
- to taste chives, shallot, a little garlic or parsley, to taste
Method
- Beat the fromage blanc with the cream, salt and pepper until smooth.
- Fold through finely chopped chives, shallot, and garlic or parsley to taste.
- Serve with hot jacket potatoes, bacon and sausage on the side, for each diner to build their own plate.
What a modern chef changes
The dairy's own texture pushed further, since this is a dish built entirely on it.
Rung 5, applied to fresh rather than washed-rind cheese.
Method
- Hang a portion of the fromage blanc in muslin over a bowl for an hour before mixing, thickening it slightly beyond shop-bought consistency, a light version of the same gravity-drainage principle used for hung yoghurt elsewhere in this atlas.
- Serve the potatoes properly hot and the cheese properly cold, a genuine temperature contrast rather than everything served lukewarm together, which is a common and avoidable domestic flattening of this dish.