Make Your Own Creme Fraiche

The Oxford dictionary defines creme fraiche as 'a type of thick cream made from heavy cream with the addition of buttermilk, sour cream, or yogurt'. A lot of people wonder what the difference is between sour cream and creme fraiche, as they are often used interchangeably in recipes, particularly in savory soups. If you've tried different store-bought varieties before, you'll notice that there is indeed a range: some are soupier than sour cream, and less tangy, some are much thicker, and more tangy, and some are even sweet. In my opinion, creme fraiche is simply more 'creamy'-- so it tastes more like cream.

This does tend to mean more fat, yes, but I'm not an anti-fat person. Especially not tasty, naturally occurring milk fat. Consider that this is something you add to recipes as a topping usually, so you probably don't need to stress out over exactly how much fat is in it. (In my humble opinion.)

You can find it in plenty of stores, and often times pay a pretty penny for it, or you can make it yourself, on the cheap. If you make it yourself, you're in charge of all the factors of its taste: how sour it is, how thick it is, and the quality of the ingredients, of course. And it's easy and fun, too!

INGREDIENTS
Yields just over 2 cups.

• 2 cups heavy cream-- I advocate as unadulterated, fresh-from-the-cow as you can get. You'll taste a difference. Also, it takes ultra-pasteurized cream longer to thicken, so avoid that if you can.
  

• 1/4 cup plain yogurt or buttermilk (or previous batch of creme fraiche)

PREPARATION
1 Warm up the cream on the stove, but don't boil it. Take it off the heat and let it naturally cool down to room temperature.
2 Transfer to a bowl, and then add in your yogurt or buttermilk, cover it with a loose rag. Keep it on the kitchen counter at room temperature to let it culture. After about 12 hours you'll want to taste it. If you like it more sour or tangy, leave it another 12 - 24 hours. You'll notice the heat will expedite this process, so keep in mind that the amount of time you leave it out for your desired tanginess might differ throughout the year.
3 Once it's done, put in in a sealed jar in the fridge, and you can use it for up to two weeks. At the tail end of those two weeks, you can use a 1/4 cup of it to make a new batch. Amazing, cheap, and simply delicious.

SERVING
Creme fraiche is great on savory soups and stews, but can also go well with desserts, particularly fruit. You can even whip sugar in (1-2 tablespoons granulated white sugar to 1 cup creme fraiche) and use it in place of whipping cream. It really is all-star.

Borsch / Borscht / Borshch

What a haul of purple vegetables! Purple Dragon Carrots were the highlight of my meal that night.

The first 'real meal' I made after setting my goal was a vegetable borsch, a soup known for its use of beets, and the fact that it is often served with sour cream. In this case, I made creme fraiche to go along with it, which is incredibly easy to make (see how here) and, in my opinion, tastes better than sour cream. There are about a million versions of borsch in traditional Russian and Polish households; some use beef, some are strictly vegetable, some are served hot, some are served cold. I chose not to put meat flesh in mine, although I did use beef broth as the soup base, but you could opt not to if you'd prefer to avoid it.

The great thing about this dish is that you can kind of sneak in as many other vegetables as you'd like. For one, the beets dye everything a deep red color, so feeding carrots to kids becomes a sneaky trick. The flavors that stand out to me as most important in a borsch are the beets, meat if you want it, onion, vinegar, dill and creme fraiche. Aside from that, you can add/subtract the other ingredients as you see fit. Here's what I did:

INGREDIENTS

Yields about 6 servings.

• 8 cups broth (beef broth works well!)
  
• 5 large beets, peeled, chopped
• 4 carrots, peeled, chopped
• 1 large potato, cubed
• 1 large onion, peeled, quartered
• 2 cups thinly sliced cabbage
• 3/4 cup fresh dill, chopped
  
• 3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
• 3 Tbsp white vinegar
  
• 1 cup creme fraiche
  
• Salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION

1 Cut up, peel, and prepare any of the vegetables. If you have one, you can throw a the beets, carrots, potato, etc. into a slicer to make it easier on your hands.

2 Bring broth to a boil, and add in your onion to flavor the base. Incorporate beets, carrots, and potato, bringing to a boil at first, and then reducing to a simmer. Cover this and let it go about 30 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender all the way through.

3 Add in your cabbage and most of the dill (the rest you'll use as garnish) and keep it simmering for another 15 minutes.

4 Season to taste with salt and pepper how you like. Stir in the vinegars, making sure to taste test. I like my borsch vinegary, so I added extra. If you generally don't like vinegar, start with less of it and taste as you go.

SERVING

It's recommended that each serving gets a dollop of sour cream or creme fraiche and a teaspoon of fresh dill. Truly, fresh creme fraiche and dill make all the difference!