A Cheese Guide with Recipes

Greetings Everyone:

A selection of cheeses may be served as either the final or the pre-dessert course of a seated dinner or as part of an hors d'oeuvres menu.

Either way, a cheese plate or cheese tray should be a thing of beauty. Arrange the cheeses on a pretty plate (or other flat surface of your choice), accent with fresh or dried fruit and nuts, decorate with flowers and leaves. It's a good idea to select a range of cheeses with different flavors, colors and textures.

The Featured Topics are

• All About Cheese
• Sonoma Goat Cheese Salad
• Cheddar and Chive Strata

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Clark Wolf wrote a wonderful book about cheese American Cheeses: The Best Regional, Artisan, and Farmhouse Cheeses, Who Makes Them, and Where to Find Them. He shares his expertise (with a touch of attitude) on how cheese is made, how to store it, and how to serve and enjoy.

Dividing the country into sections - The Northeast and New England, The South, The Middle West, The Wild West - he explores the cheese-making communities, discussing the kind of cheeses that are specific to each of the four sections of the country and profiling dozens of the most accomplished cheesemakers, from well-known national brands to the creators of small-batch, handcrafted rarieties.

At the end of each regional section is a selection of delectable recipes that showcase the best cheese of that area from A Perfect Pimento Cheese of the American South to Blue Cheese Pralines from the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island in Michigan.

Cheese is made from milk. That means it's high in protein and has plenty of calcium and other good stuff. It also means it has some salt and a fair amount of water. Yes, it has fat and not the best kind, but some fat is okay. Cheddar and Brie are full-fat cheeses; no cream is skimmed from the milk or added when the cheese is made. In the case of Brie, the cheese can be almost half water; cheddar contains a bit less. What that means is if a cheese is 50 percent butterfat in the solids (without water, which is the traditional way it's gauged), then it's actually about 25 percent fat. Got that? Butter is 82 to 83 percent fat. You do the math.

Perhaps the easiest way to get a clear idea of how cheese happens is to do the following: Pour a gallon of whole milk (pasteurized or raw) into a pot and bring it to a boil. At the moment it comes to a boil, turn off the heat and pour in a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar. Now watch. What you'll see will look a whole lot like a satellite view of Hurricane Hilda as seen on the Weather Channel, but it's just a good old-fashioned separation of solids from liquid, the essential curds-and-whey experience.

Stir it around a bit with a wooden spoon, just to help move things along. In a little while all will settle down and start to cool off. About an hour later, empty the pot into a colander lined with a double layer of cheesecloth and let the curds drain a bit. After a few more minutes gather the corners of the cloth and tie them around that wooden spoon, then hang your new cheese bag over that same, now cooled, pot.

Put the whole thing in the fridge overnight so that it can keep draining and stay cold. In the morning, viola! You have your own homemade fresh cheese. If you cover it with ripe berries and a fine dribble of wildflower honey, you've got breakfast or dessert. If you drizzle it with some peppery extra virgin olive oil, sprinkle on a little chopped basil and sea salt, and garnish with a few of your favorite olives, you've got a light lunch.

• Plan on 1.5 to 1.75 ounces of cheese per person if serving 5 cheeses. Decrease the amount if tasting more cheeses.
• Bring cheese to room temperature (this usually takes about an hour) before serving for the best flavor and aroma.
• Use separate knives for different varieties of soft cheeses and blues.
• Suggest that guests sample the cheese from mildest to the strongest in flavor and arrange them that way.

• Slate or stone: Slate or stone tiles from a home improvement store keep cheeses cool and look beautiful
• Platters: In a pinch, you can use any flat surface as a platter, just cover it with a white linen napkin and grape leaves.
• Marble: With their distinctive patterns and colors, marble boards have been used since the Middle Ages for keeping cheeses cool.
• Straw mats and wicker trays: Inexpensive and rustically authentic, these can be beautiful and functional. The stray or wicker allows the cheese to breathe and prevents condensation, which could damage the rind.
• Wooden boards: Weathered, rustic boards are perfect for emphasizing the artisanal origin of cheese. Gnarled pieces of wood or driftwood can have unusual patterns, holes and cracks that represent the natural, pastoral nature of cheese.

1. When you prepare cheese samplers, present different cheese varieties in different shapes. It helps your guests easily identify the different varieties.

2. It is best to cut soft cheeses while they are still chilled. This helps keep lines clean and makes them easier to handle.

3. A chef's knife works well for most cheeses. However, hard cheeses, such as Parmigiano-Reggiano, cut better when brought to room temperature.

Narrow your selection to Brie? Bleu? Goat? Sheep? and choose three to four cheeses based on texture - Soft, Semi-Soft and Hard.

• Buy only what you need for a given occasion.
• Wrap leftover cheese in waxed butcher paper or waxed pastry paper so it can breath.
• Wrap blue cheeses in plastic so they won't breathe all over everything in your refrigerator.
• Store cheese in the vegetable drawer of your fridge

REMEMBER: Cheese is a living thing, continuing to evolve (that is, to mold). In the case of most hard cheese, just cut off the mold and enjoy the cheese.

There are two ways: You can choose cheeses in which the rind or the pate of the cheese is colorful (like the deep purple rind on the Bella Vitano Balsamic Wheel); or you could rely on accompaniments to provide the color. Grapes, apples, jams, or colorful leaves such as chard can really liven up the display. HONEYCOMB is a personal favorite. It looks and tastes glorious, especially with cheese!

Simple foods that go with almost any cheese is flatbreads, walnuts, dried fruits. You can't go wrong. A crisp pear, an heirloom apple (Red Delicious) and most kinds of grapes. With fresh cheeses, if they have a little tartness going on, I love sliced tomatoes and cracked pepper, ripe avocado, a drizzle of olive oil, and a leaf of nearly any tasty green.

Clark shared some things that I did not know about wine and cheese. He said that a recent study at the University of California at Davis stated, the stronger the cheese, the more it dulls the palate and so overpowers any real experience of some of the subtler, perhaps even more desirable, flavors of a red wine. It's just good sense that a full-fat cheese, with its own pack of fermented flavors, might be too much for that hint of anise, that whiff of spring flowers and wild berries, about which wine writers wax poetic.

He served apple cider, beer and Prosecco wine with his cheeses, the pairings were fabulous!. He also said that oaky chardonnay went wonderfully with sharp cheddar.

NOTES: If you want to buy a delicious semi soft cheese, buy Pleasant Ridge cheese from Wisconsin, made of raw milk. and has won best of show 3 times. Also, did you know that if a cheese is too strong, spread a cracker with butter and then put the cheese on top of the butter.

This is the recipe that lead the revolution. It taught America that each leaf could have its own world of flavors, and that the best leaves changed with the season. It gently introduced mild yet distinct and consistently delicious goat cheese, and helped kick off a boom of what many called California cuisine. The fad has receded, but the pervasive influence on the American table is undeniable.

• 1/2 pound fresh Laura Chenel Goat Cheese
• 1 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 3 to 4 sprigs fresh thyme, chopped
• 1 sprig rosemary, chopped
• 1/2 sour baguette
• 1 tbsp. red wine vinegar
• 1 tsp. sherry vinegar
• salt and pepper
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 1/2 garden lettuces

Slice goat cheese into 8 disks about 1/2 inch thick. Pour olive oil over the disks and sprinkle with the chopped herbs. Cover and store in cool place for several hours or up to a week.

Preheat oven to 300F. Cut the baguette in half lengthwise and dry out in the oven for 20 minutes or so, until dry and lightly colored. Grate into fine crumbs on a box grater or in a food processor. Crumbs can be made in advanced and stored.

Preheat oven to 400F. Remove the cheese disks from marinade and roll them in the bread crumbs, coating thoroughly. Place cheese on baking sheet and bake for 6 minutes until cheese is warm.

Measure the vinegars in small bowl and add a pinch of salt. Whisk in the oil and a little fresh pepper. Taste for seasoning and adjust. Carefully place 2 disks of the baked cheese over greens and serve.

On one of Clark's first Vermont wanders he stayed at this lovely inn run by a young couple determined to enjoy a bed and breakfast sort of country life - without all of the fru-fru often associated with the genre. They suggested he try their version of this old fashioned heart (and artery) stopping and completely satisfying dish. We loved it and so will you!

• 1/2 loaf French bread, cubed with crust on
• 2 cups shredded Vermont Cheddar
• 2 tbsp. chopped chives
• 1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
• 15 eggs
• 5 cups of half and half

Preheat oven to 350F. Butter a 9"x13" pan. Line pan with diced bread. Cover with cheddar and chives. Whisk together eggs, Dijon, half and half, salt and pepper. Pour over bread. Ideally refrigerate overnight. Bake in the oven at 350F until golden brown and puffed up (approximately 1 hour). Let sit for 10 minutes to set before serving.

Also, join me on my facebook page and learn lots more about gourmet cooking!

Lastly, my e-books are available for an easy download! My all-time favorite pork tenderloin recipes with color photos of each entree are very easy and truly gourmet. I know you will impress your family and friends with these delicious recipes! 25 Favorite Pork Tenderloin Recipes. And, my Gourmet It Up e-book that takes you from where you are now in your cooking and teaches you the tried and true steps and secrets to becoming a gourmet cook! A must for a serious cook! Gourmet It Up.

Until Next Year

Sincerely,

Chef Kathy Davault How-To-Cook-Gourmet


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