Mulled Muscadines and Whipped Feta Toast
Deep Run Roots
In the book, whipped feta is introduced first for another recipe, but I can't imagine a better use for it than with these sweetly spiced muscadine grapes. The feta is salty and funky in the way good aged cheese can be, but the grapes are sweet and tangy and a great compliment. Of course the bread, fried in olive oil, is a crispy vehicle for those components.
(Of course, you can get a more mild feta cheese for this recipe, and I'm sure it would still be great!)
The recipe I found online is quite a bit different than the one in the book, both in the amount it makes (it makes more!) and the method (you don't pre-seed the grapes, but cook the pulp down then strain out the seeds before adding the hulls.) It also suggests using a creamy goat cheese, or even ricotta, instead of the whipped feta called for here. Otherwise, it's a similar result. You can find that recipe here: https://www.pbs.org/food/recipes/mulled-muscadines-with-fried-crostini-and-creamy-goat-cheese/
Captions
[00:00]: [Music]
[00:05]: hello
[00:05]: and welcome to cooking the books with
[00:07]: heather on this episode we are going to
[00:09]: be working out of vivian howard's
[00:11]: cookbook
[00:11]: deep run roots and it is once again
[00:14]: muscadine grape season here in north
[00:16]: carolina well
[00:18]: we got some from georgia from the
[00:19]: grocery store this time but
[00:21]: pretty soon it'll be they'll be
[00:23]: everywhere uh
[00:24]: from north carolina lots of muscadine
[00:26]: and scuppered on grapes here
[00:29]: and we're going to be making mulled
[00:32]: muscadines and whipped
[00:33]: feta toast we're actually going to be
[00:35]: eating this tomorrow
[00:37]: but tonight we need to make the mulled
[00:39]: muscadines because they need to sit at
[00:41]: least
[00:42]: overnight in the refrigerator to sort of
[00:44]: let all the
[00:45]: the flavors marry and everything let it
[00:48]: sort of the flavors develop
[00:49]: um so we're gonna be making that now and
[00:52]: we'll see you at the stove
[00:54]: so we're ready to make our mold
[00:55]: muscadines and
[00:57]: there's a very specific order you're
[00:58]: supposed to add the ingredients here so
[00:59]: i'm going to
[00:60]: be referring to the book rather often
[01:03]: but first we're going to put in i have
[01:05]: all of my ingredients already measured
[01:07]: out
[01:07]: right here you guys probably can't see
[01:09]: them but first we're going to add
[01:12]: muscadine grapes uh they've already been
[01:14]: cut in half
[01:16]: and the seeds have been removed
[01:20]: so i did that for you guys in another
[01:23]: episode
[01:24]: and i will hopefully remember to link
[01:26]: that right here
[01:28]: we'll see i'm gonna keep this here to
[01:30]: put my spoon in but
[01:32]: um all we put in right now i'm pretty
[01:35]: sure
[01:36]: is some water all right and we're going
[01:39]: to turn
[01:40]: the stove to medium high
[01:44]: and bring this to a boil and once it
[01:46]: comes to a boil we're going to boil it
[01:47]: for
[01:48]: five minutes just as is
[01:51]: be right back but while this is coming
[01:53]: to a boil i'm going to go ahead and get
[01:56]: my sachet ready this is a different
[01:59]: sachet than the last one we did
[02:00]: but i went looking for cheesecloth
[02:03]: apparently
[02:05]: whereas in early in this whole lockdown
[02:08]: quarantine situation everyone wanted
[02:12]: yeast and couldn't find yeast
[02:14]: now apparently everybody wants
[02:15]: cheesecloth and
[02:17]: the store was out of it and so i decided
[02:20]: i was going to use one of these little
[02:22]: tea bags again um
[02:26]: i don't feel too bad about it there's
[02:27]: not that much stuff going in here
[02:29]: and even in her cheesecloth her
[02:33]: cinnamon stick sticks out of it so
[02:36]: that's not going to be a problem
[02:38]: but so i'll wait for that to come to a
[02:40]: boil i'm going to put
[02:43]: um some cloves
[02:49]: in here and some whole
[02:53]: black peppercorns so whole cloves whole
[02:55]: black peppercorns
[02:57]: and my cinnamon stick which
[03:00]: almost fits but not quite but i'm going
[03:03]: to go ahead and
[03:05]: tie this um tightly so that it doesn't
[03:09]: come out this should be just fine it'll
[03:12]: do
[03:12]: the exact same job as the cheesecloth
[03:16]: and once again i will have to try to
[03:20]: find some
[03:21]: the next time i go out or i'll just
[03:23]: order some to be delivered i think
[03:25]: that's probably
[03:26]: what i will do just to order some and
[03:28]: then i'll have it next time i need it
[03:29]: and i bet
[03:30]: i won't need it so i'm going to keep put
[03:33]: this back in my bowl because we don't
[03:34]: need it right now
[03:36]: and i'm going to get some zest
[03:39]: from orange and a lemon
[03:43]: um and i forgot i need some lemon juice
[03:45]: so i'm gonna have to do that too
[03:46]: but it should be fine from one lemon
[03:49]: so um i need
[03:54]: two strips of zest from each of these
[03:58]: removed with a peeler so i'm just going
[03:60]: to get
[04:02]: basically the whole thing
[04:05]: and remove two strips the whole
[04:09]: length and that's fine for that
[04:14]: and then i'm going to do the same thing
[04:17]: for the lemon two strips
[04:21]: just try to get the outer layer
[04:24]: not the white stuff
[04:27]: look we're starting to come to a boil
[04:29]: already so
[04:30]: that is ready um i also have
[04:33]: some a sprig of uh
[04:36]: rosemary fresh rosemary just cut it off
[04:38]: the plant in my garden
[04:41]: all right so i'm going to make sure this
[04:43]: is boiling
[04:45]: all throughout before i start a timer
[04:49]: just to make sure it is actually a good
[04:52]: boil
[04:53]: and not just bubbling around the edges
[04:57]: so um
[05:01]: anyway and now i'm going to need to
[05:05]: uh get some juice from this lemon so i'm
[05:07]: going to have to cut that in half and do
[05:09]: that
[05:11]: call that boiling i'm gonna set my timer
[05:13]: for five minutes
[05:15]: [Music]
[05:18]: and i'm gonna go ahead and juice my
[05:20]: lemon and we'll see when this five
[05:22]: minutes is over
[05:23]: okay so it's been five minutes my timer
[05:25]: just went off and now i'm going to add
[05:27]: the rest of my ingredients while it's
[05:29]: still at the medium high temperature
[05:31]: i'm gonna add my sprig of rosemary
[05:35]: my sachet my
[05:39]: orange and lemon zest i also have
[05:45]: some honey
[05:48]: i finally bought some different honey so
[05:50]: it was easier for me to
[05:52]: measure out the right amount um
[05:55]: honey we've got some
[05:59]: ginger just minced
[06:05]: and okay i kind of cheated with my
[06:07]: orange juice
[06:08]: i was at the grocery store couldn't
[06:10]: really didn't want to
[06:12]: get this much orange juice from oranges
[06:14]: didn't squeeze all that much
[06:15]: but i found some cold pressed fresh
[06:18]: orange juice
[06:19]: so it's all pulpy and just like what i
[06:21]: would have so
[06:22]: i decided we were going to use that for
[06:24]: this recipe
[06:26]: and then i have my lemon juice that we
[06:29]: talked about already
[06:31]: all right so i've added all that and it
[06:33]: is
[06:35]: coming back up to temperature
[06:38]: um now since we just have the
[06:41]: bronze scupper muscadine grapes
[06:45]: not the uh purple ones ours is not going
[06:48]: to be the beautiful
[06:49]: purple color that hers is but it will
[06:52]: taste just the same
[06:53]: so flavor difference not really just the
[06:56]: color
[06:57]: so we're going to now that we've added
[06:59]: that in
[07:01]: we're going to turn it down
[07:04]: to medium low
[07:07]: and let it simmer
[07:14]: we're going to let it simmer for 20
[07:16]: minutes um
[07:17]: you're looking for slow bubbles
[07:21]: across the entire surface not just
[07:24]: around the edges
[07:26]: so i think this will probably be okay
[07:29]: i'm going to go ahead and set my timer
[07:30]: for 20 minutes
[07:33]: [Music]
[07:36]: all right when that timer goes off
[07:39]: this will basically be done cooking
[07:43]: it's it's gonna get more syrupy
[07:46]: and uh just sort of thicker
[07:50]: syrupy in the honey and the sugars the
[07:53]: water will dissolve more as it
[07:56]: as it um
[08:00]: as it boils off um
[08:04]: and so that will be
[08:08]: done but we let everything
[08:12]: cool to room temperature before we
[08:14]: remove the sachet
[08:16]: she does not talk about removing the
[08:19]: lemon zest the orange zest or
[08:22]: the sprig of rosemary
[08:25]: so i assume that that will stay in but
[08:28]: so we're going to
[08:29]: boil this simmer this for 20 minutes
[08:33]: and then we're going to let it cool down
[08:36]: to room temperature before we remove the
[08:37]: sachet and we're going to put it in a
[08:39]: closed container
[08:40]: in the refrigerator overnight at least
[08:44]: or up to two weeks and we'll come back
[08:48]: and we'll show you what we do with it so
[08:49]: this has been boiling like this for
[08:51]: about
[08:52]: 20 minutes now actually 20 minutes on my
[08:54]: timer
[08:55]: but i did want to say that i completely
[08:57]: forgot that there was also
[08:58]: some apple cider vinegar in it that i
[09:02]: forgot to put in in the very beginning
[09:03]: but at about
[09:05]: five minutes in i put it in um
[09:09]: and so it's it's a little
[09:12]: thicker not too much a little syrupy
[09:17]: so we're going to turn the heat off
[09:21]: and we're going to let this sit until it
[09:23]: is uh room temperature then we're going
[09:25]: to take out the sachet
[09:26]: and put it in the refrigerator for
[09:28]: tomorrow next day
[09:30]: i decided that uh
[09:34]: my mold muscadines were a little thin
[09:37]: not as syrupy they made it was more than
[09:40]: two cups supposedly the recipe says it
[09:42]: makes a cup i don't know how you get a
[09:43]: cup
[09:44]: of stuff from two cups of
[09:48]: uh grapes plus a lot of other stuff
[09:52]: so i'm boiling it down a little bit and
[09:53]: i also forgot to add the salt
[09:57]: so easy fix though i'm just boiling it
[09:60]: down a little bit
[10:01]: when we use it it's supposed to be at
[10:03]: room temperature anyway
[10:04]: so this is it's gonna be okay i don't
[10:06]: have to
[10:08]: um cool it down or anything just
[10:11]: it'll be fine but now we're gonna make
[10:13]: the whipped feta
[10:15]: in the book this is not the recipe is
[10:17]: not included in this page it is in a
[10:20]: previous recipe and she refers back to
[10:22]: it
[10:23]: we haven't made that recipe before so
[10:25]: we're going to go ahead and make it with
[10:26]: this recipe
[10:28]: and all it is it's just two ingredients
[10:30]: in the food processor so
[10:31]: i have my feta now i chose um
[10:36]: some i don't know some good stuff
[10:40]: that i thought it was good stuff i hope
[10:41]: it's i hope it
[10:43]: creams up like it's supposed to it's
[10:45]: sort of barrel
[10:46]: aged from greece i don't know i went to
[10:49]: the nice grocery store
[10:50]: and they had a lot of options and that's
[10:52]: what i chose
[10:54]: and some buttermilk we're trying once
[10:56]: again to
[10:58]: um use up some buttermilk
[11:03]: so
[11:06]: we have this our one thing of buttermilk
[11:08]: now now i think i've made
[11:11]: three or four recipes from so
[11:14]: still not still haven't finished it all
[11:17]: right
[11:18]: so we're just gonna puree this until it
[11:21]: is
[11:22]: smooth
[11:27]: okay i'm gonna check it see if i need to
[11:30]: um
[11:31]: scrape it down and do it again for a
[11:33]: little bit just you know as usual with
[11:35]: this kind of thing
[11:42]: now it is not super creamy but it is
[11:45]: sort of
[11:47]: i don't know getting there maybe
[11:55]: i'm gonna go again
[11:60]: all right i'm gonna call that done it
[12:03]: certainly looks
[12:04]: um kind of see that it looks it's all
[12:08]: staying at the bottom now
[12:09]: and it looks creamy so i'm gonna call
[12:11]: that done it might just take
[12:13]: a while depending on how creamy your
[12:16]: feta is to begin with
[12:17]: um some are drier than others and some
[12:20]: are wetter so
[12:22]: all right we'll meet you back at the
[12:24]: stove to get our toasts ready
[12:27]: everything else is done we've done our
[12:29]: mold muscadines
[12:31]: we have whipped our feta which by the
[12:33]: way is very salty so
[12:34]: definitely the uh sweet tanginess
[12:38]: of the mold muscadines is going to be a
[12:41]: good idea
[12:42]: speaking of i was looking at the recipe
[12:45]: that she did uh for pbs for her
[12:49]: a chef's life series and it's very
[12:51]: different well not very different but it
[12:53]: has a different method it has a few
[12:55]: other ingredients
[12:56]: but in that one she also says that if
[12:57]: it's a little bit too tangy for
[12:59]: your taste um feel free to add some more
[13:02]: honey
[13:03]: when it's done but now we're going to
[13:06]: fry
[13:06]: the toasts we have some
[13:09]: olive oil heating in a fry pan
[13:13]: over medium heat and i have sliced um
[13:16]: some baguette into about half inch
[13:20]: slices
[13:21]: looking at my husband who decides to
[13:24]: tell me that it's
[13:25]: not correct that's not half an inch
[13:27]: that's more like an inch or whatever
[13:33]: half inch slices approximately it
[13:35]: probably doesn't really matter
[13:38]: anyway so i think
[13:42]: i'm just kind of waiting for my pan to
[13:43]: get hot and it's
[13:47]: not quite there yet but once it's there
[13:49]: we're going to fry
[13:50]: the bread until it's brown
[13:53]: and then we're going to turn it over
[13:55]: salt it and fry the other side
[13:57]: i'm going to get some tongs for that
[14:01]: turning process
[14:04]: and i have a plate lined with paper
[14:07]: towels back here
[14:09]: ready to drain them when we take them
[14:11]: off so
[14:12]: i'm probably only going to do about half
[14:14]: of the baguette the
[14:15]: recipe calls for a whole baguette but we
[14:18]: don't
[14:19]: we don't need to eat that much right now
[14:20]: so and this will keep
[14:22]: the feta and the preserves will
[14:24]: definitely keep in the refrigerator
[14:27]: um for quite a while i mean it's very
[14:30]: salty cheese and
[14:31]: um i think she says the mold
[14:34]: mold muscadines
[14:38]: up to two weeks so you can have it more
[14:40]: than once um
[14:43]: and but you'll want to fry the bread
[14:45]: fresh right before
[14:46]: she says that you can you know wait in
[14:49]: this recipe she says you can wait
[14:51]: um up to up to an hour after you fry the
[14:55]: bread
[14:56]: in the other recipe it says as soon as
[14:58]: you're done
[14:59]: frying the bread just spread it with the
[15:02]: feta
[15:02]: and go ahead and eat it so it's like
[15:05]: getting a little
[15:07]: it's a little bubbly i'm gonna let that
[15:08]: one go for a second before i
[15:11]: put some more in and i might turn my
[15:14]: heat
[15:14]: up a tiny bit i know when i'm actually
[15:16]: frying like more like deep frying
[15:20]: a little higher temperature keeps my oil
[15:23]: um at you know 350 which is generally
[15:26]: what you fry at but
[15:29]: so i'm basically just gonna fill the pan
[15:36]: there we go oh i have one more piece
[15:40]: i can certainly fit that in
[15:46]: there we go let it go for a couple
[15:49]: minutes i'll check the first piece to
[15:50]: see if it's brown and we'll turn it over
[15:54]: all right so i did turn the heat up a
[15:57]: little bit because i it just wasn't
[15:58]: getting brown
[15:60]: and it was just soaking up all of the um
[16:03]: oil
[16:04]: instead of getting brown so uh that was
[16:08]: about
[16:12]: three or four minutes on one side
[16:15]: um so i'm turning them over
[16:21]: some of them are browner than others but
[16:22]: it will be fine
[16:25]: i'm just going to
[16:28]: salt the top side while it's warm and
[16:34]: oily and will absorb the salt will stick
[16:36]: to it
[16:37]: hopefully although i'm not super
[16:39]: concerned because that feta is
[16:41]: that the whipped feta is pretty salty
[16:45]: all right so we're just going to let
[16:46]: these brown
[16:48]: and then we're going to when we're when
[16:50]: they're all brown on the other side
[16:51]: we'll put them
[16:52]: on the plate with paper towels
[16:55]: and then we'll show you what it looks
[16:57]: like so we have all of our ingredients
[16:59]: here
[16:60]: she says we're gonna put them together
[17:03]: very simple
[17:04]: she says use two tablespoons of each
[17:07]: and definitely equal about equal amounts
[17:10]: of each on the toasts
[17:12]: these toasts are pretty small i don't
[17:14]: know if my baguette is smaller than hers
[17:17]: i don't think there's a picture of this
[17:18]: particular uh recipe
[17:21]: in the book just there's the mold
[17:23]: muscadines which also
[17:24]: if you use the purple ones it'll be
[17:27]: prettier than this sort of brown
[17:29]: bronze but that's what we had so
[17:32]: um so i'm gonna do maybe about a
[17:34]: tablespoon
[17:37]: and uh the same
[17:44]: on here and it's definitely thicker than
[17:48]: it was
[17:49]: um even from the the pictures that i saw
[17:51]: you're not going to get like a jelly
[17:53]: type consistency from this
[17:54]: or a jam consistency it's going to be
[17:56]: kind of runny but
[17:58]: i'm going to make a few for us to try
[18:01]: and i'll let you know how everybody
[18:03]: what everybody thinks
[18:14]: on this episode of cooking the books
[18:16]: with heather you watched me make
[18:17]: mulled muscadines and whipped feta toast
[18:23]: so this was not super hard it did
[18:26]: require
[18:26]: a food processor to make the whipped
[18:29]: feta which
[18:30]: is in a different recipe whatever
[18:34]: everything else was relatively easy the
[18:36]: hardest part about this
[18:37]: is finding the muscadines which it's a
[18:40]: very
[18:41]: you know short season and they're not
[18:42]: really available outside of the season
[18:44]: although
[18:45]: and they're not really um something that
[18:48]: are generally available frozen
[18:50]: so if you have a vine or have access to
[18:52]: someone who has a vine you might be able
[18:53]: to find you know some frozen ones in
[18:54]: their freezers and a recipe like this
[18:56]: would be great for it but
[18:58]: so that's the hardest part about this
[18:60]: recipe is finding that particular
[19:02]: ingredient
[19:03]: everything else is pretty pretty easy
[19:07]: but both
[19:10]: of these components were
[19:14]: not something i think i would enjoy like
[19:16]: on their own
[19:17]: uh the mold muscadines are tasty they're
[19:20]: sweet
[19:21]: they're a little um spicy sort of like
[19:25]: the
[19:25]: the winter time spices uh
[19:28]: and and they were good but just not
[19:31]: something that i
[19:32]: really enjoyed on its own the
[19:35]: whipped feta with the feta that i used
[19:37]: was
[19:39]: very salty and very sort of
[19:43]: funky but i got an aged feta for mine
[19:46]: and it was just not very not great on
[19:48]: its own
[19:49]: but together they were really delicious
[19:52]: they complemented each other perfectly
[19:54]: and on sort of the olive oil
[19:57]: fried bits of toast it was delicious
[20:02]: so if you have access to muscadine
[20:05]: grapes uh i would
[20:07]: certainly make this you may wonder about
[20:10]: these skins because usually you don't
[20:12]: eat skins on muscadines
[20:14]: um because they're very very tough but
[20:17]: even a small amount of cooking
[20:19]: um renders them very very
[20:22]: tender so those were not a problem so if
[20:25]: you're if you're thinking uh
[20:26]: great those grape skins would be awful
[20:28]: no that's not a problem
[20:29]: you don't even notice the grape skins in
[20:32]: this
[20:33]: so uh we really enjoyed it
[20:36]: the kids not so much but we didn't
[20:39]: expect them to really
[20:41]: um but the adults really enjoyed it and
[20:44]: we shared it with some friends and they
[20:45]: also
[20:46]: really enjoyed it so yeah
[20:49]: we love the recipe if you enjoyed
[20:53]: watching me make this please give me a
[20:55]: thumbs up
[20:57]: hit subscribe and come back and watch me
[20:58]: make something else next week