Our New Year's Eve Spanish sampler featured Gramona Gran Cuvee Cava (2003), two Spanish cheeses, drunken goat and mahon (cow's milk aged in olive oil and paprika), lomo (cured pork), and roasted almonds. The Gramona is one of the few remaining family-owned estates producing cava in the Penedes region. Gramona cavas are aged significantly longer than most cavas, 30 months for the Gran Cuvee, producing a delightful, flavorful bubbly. The drunken goat is a semi-hard cheese aged in red wine (Doble Pasta) and is creamy and rich - make sure to let it sit at room temperature for at least one hour, preferably two. Mahon is a firmer, chewier cheese with a richness and lovely orange hue from the paprika. Salty lomo and almonds were perfect complements.
Chocolate and cheese may seem like an unlikely combination, but a good, bittersweet chocolate can be a perfect complement to a rich, creamy cheese. These handmade truffles from Lillie Belle Farms in Oregon contain the Rogue Smokey Blue I wrote about previously, and are rolled in crushed toasted almonds to complement the nutty, smoky flavor of the cheese. Luscious and pungent, these are truly divine. Lille Belle uses only organic and fair trade ingredients, and has quite a few other enticing flavors.
Tonight's Cheesetique
course was on holiday entertaining. The lecture portion focused on tips
for creating the perfect party cheese platter. Some useful tips:
- For appetizer or after dinner, serve 3-4 ounces per person; for the main course, 5-6 ounces per person.
- Variety is good, but include one cheese everyone will love and one more adventerous sweet or salty cheese.
- Always let the cheeses sit at room temperature for 1-2 hours before serving, and provide a knife for each cheese to avoid mixing flavors.
- Saint Julien with Walnut (cow, France) - looks like layer cake, luscious and creamy, sweet with a walnut layer. Great for people who aren't into stinky cheese, this is incredibly mild.
- La Leyenda Brandy Cheese (raw sheep, Spain) - A manchego-style aged cheese wrapped in herbs and soaked in Solera Brandy. Grassy and flavorful.
- Boschetto al Tartufo (sheep & cow, Italy) - Flavored with white truffle shavings, this is Incredibly earthy, creamy, delicate and fragrant.
I am a long-time fan of Rogue Creamery of Oregon - makers of Oregonzola - but I hadn't tried their Smokey Blue until a recent "Best Blues" class at Cheesetique. Rogue Creamery has an interesting history, started in southern Oregon by an Italian immigrant in 1935 with the backing of J.L. Kraft. Yes, that Kraft. Rogue produced the first American blue cheese to win the London Best Cheese Award for blue cheese, with its Rogue River Blue in 2003. The Rogue River is made only during the autumnal equinox and winter solstice each year, and wrapped in grape leaves macerated in pear brandy to give it a sharp, fruity flavor.
The Smokey Blue is the first cold-smoked blue cheese, smoked for 16 hours over crushed Oregon hazelnut shells. Domestic hazelnuts are entirely grown in the Pacific Northwest, virtually all in Oregon's Willamette Valley, so it's a natural fit. [Did you know hazelnuts have the highest folate level of any tree nut?] The hazelnuts give the cheese a hint of sweetness, balancing out the smoky and sharp blue cheese tang.
I had fantasized about pairing this with Nutella, but alas, I was out and couldn't wait for a grocery trip. Instead I used an Oregon blackberry jam on sourdough toast, which was a great sweet-sharp, creamy-crunchy contrast. Next time around, I plan to pair it with a Rogue HazelNut Brown Nectar Ale, to harmonize with the hazelnut flavor.
crossposted @ mojitomama.vox.com
Stopped into Cheesetique for a little pancetta and old standby, husband-approved garlic gouda, and decided to finally try one of the Wisconsin cheeses the owner discovered on a cheese pilgrimage this past spring.
Gran Canaria - Carr Valley - is a mixed-milk (cow, sheep and goat) cheese aged 2+ years and cured in olive oil.
It was very dense and creamy, pungent, with the slight sweetness of sheep's milk and nuttiness of goat. It won "best of show" at the 2004 American Cheese Society Competition, and deservedly so.
