Molly bought her first dairy sheep 4 years ago. Mollarella was an amazing, no history, Craigslist find, productive ewe! She’d lamb earlier and milk longer than any other ewe we had! The only time she dried off early is when she lambed twice in one year!!!
The sheep milk is delicious in its own right, but it really holds its place as aged grating cheese—like Romano or Parmesan. It just ages incredibly easily and quickly, much more so than the cows milk cheese and more pleasantly than the goat milk cheese. It makes amazing Alfredo! The cheese is rich and crunchy with tyrosine crystals, pungent and earthy without being sharp.
The younger cheeses are nice, but they don’t steal the show like those old wheels!! It’s also done very good for Feta or mixed with cows milk to increase yield and flavor.
Unfortunately we lost Mollarella and several of our best ewes last spring. This season we had one black milking ewe, and a grand daughter of Mollarella who didn’t have much of a first lactation.
Realizing that our numbers were just too low to maintain a flock, I started sheep shopping. Willowbrook Farm south of us had a handful of weaned ewe lambs available, and we picked out 3. Then I was scrolling one evening and saw another small farm was dispersing 3 milking ewes and a lamb not too far north of us. Arrangements were made and that group also joined us on Wednesday.
The ewes are young and later in lactation so we’re getting 3-4 quarts of milk from 4 ewes, but it’s enough to make our sheep cheese season last longer! Best thing is that the ewes are friendly and used to being hand milked.
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