The Best Melting Cheeses

I love nothing more than a good grill cheese, or good melted cheese on vegetables or some homemade pizza. But not all cheeses are equal. And not all cheeses melt into yummy goodness. For whatever reason you want to add some meltolious cheese to your recipe, here is a list to help pick a good cheese that will melt.

Asiago
Bel Paese
Brick
Brie
Butterkase
Cantal
Cheddar
Cheshire
Colby
Comte
Crescenza
Double Gloucester
Edam
Fontina
Gouda
Gruyere
Havarti
Iberico
Jarlsberg
Mahon
Mimolette
Monterey Jack
Mozzarella
Muenster
Ossau-Iraty
Fresh Pecorino
Port-Salut
Provolone
Queso Oaxaca
Raclette
Roncal
Swiss
Teleme
Urgelia

Bon Appétit

Uhh?!?!?!?! What kind of Cheese is this?

If you have been to the cheese section at your local grocery store lately, you might have noticed that is has become a little foreign. With cheese names like Ossau-Iraty, Urgelia, Tomme de Savoie, or Bel Paese. You might think you need to learn another language just to understand these cheeses.

To help you in your foreign adventures at the cheese section, I created a way to understand the different styles in which cheese is made and that gives it its flavor. If you know what you like then you can try to find other cheeses in the style to try. So hopefully the next time we are standing in front of a sea of foreign names at the cheese section we are not so frightened to try something new.

The first style Fresh; it has a mild, milky, and/or tangy flavor. The flavor strength is mild. Examples include Ricotta, Mozzarella, and Fresh goat cheese.

The second style is Semi-Soft; it has a milky, tangy, and/or sweet flavor. The flavor strength is mild. Examples include Colby, Havarti, and Monterrey Jack

The third style is Soft-Ripened; it has a buttery, mushroomy, and/or creamy flavor. The flavor strength can be mild to medium strong. Examples include Brie, Camembert, and Banon

The fourth style is Surface-Ripened; it has an earthy, creamy, mushroomy, and/or tangy flavor. The flavor strength can be medium to strong. Examples include Le Chevrot, La Tur, and Rocchetta.

The fifth style is Semi-Hard; it has an earthy, buttery, nutty, and/or fruity flavor. The flavor strength can be medium to strong. Examples include Cheddar, Gruyere, and Gouda.

The sixth style is Hard; it has a salty, sweet, sharp, and/or caramel flavor. The flavor strength can be medium-strong to strong. Examples include Parmigiano-Reggiano and Aged Asiago.

The seventh is Blue Cheese; it has a floral, pungent, musty, and/or salty flavor. The flavor strength can be medium-strong to very strong. Examples include Gorgonzola, Stilton Blue, and Maytag Blue.

The eighth is Washed-Rind; it has a beefy, gamy, creamy, nutty, and/or salty flavor. The flavor strength can be strong to very strong. Examples include Munster, Taleggio, and Chaubier.

Bon Appétit

Bacon Cheddar Chive Biscuits

I was watching the Wednesday April 14th episode of Top Chef Master’s. The main challenge was to create an unforgettable soul food inspired meal for actor Mekhi Phifer. You know you are a southern girl at heart when you crave grandma’s cooking after watching this episode. So I came across this recipe, and it may not be my grandmother’s recipe, but it is just as good as if she came up with it herself. It is comfort food at its best, so eat this sparingly.

Recipe:
6 thick slices of bacon
3 ¾ cups bread flour
1 ½ Tablespoons of baking powder
1 ¼ teaspoons of baking soda
1 ¼ teaspoons of salt
½ cup (1 stick) frozen unsalted butter, cut into ½ inch cubes
Extra melted butter for brushing
2 ½ cups (packed) coarsely grated sharp cheddar cheese (about 12 ounces)
1/3 cup chopped fresh chives
1 ¾ cups chilled buttermilk

Position Rack just above center of the oven and preheat to 425 degrees. Line heavy large baking sheet with parchment paper. Cook bacon in heavy large skillet over medium heat until crisp and brown. Transfer bacon to paper towels to drain, then chop coarsely.

Sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in large bowl. Add butter cubes. Cut butter into flour mixture until it forms a coarse meal. Add cheddar cheese, fresh chives, and chopped bacon; toss and blend. Gradually add buttermilk, stirring to moisten evenly (batter will feel sticky).

Using a scoop, drop about ½ cup batter for each biscuit onto prepared baking sheet, spacing batter mounds about 2 inches apart.

Bake biscuits until golden brown and toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 18-20 minutes. Brush biscuits lightly with melted butter. Let cool for 10 minutes. Serve biscuits warm or at room temperature.

Recipe yields about 16 biscuits. Recipe was adapted from Bon Appétit, February 2010.

Bon Appétit

My New Love

I know, I know, I know!! I am supposed to be buying American made cheese from my local farmer’s market. Note: what I wrote in the previous blog. But I was examining the gourmet cheese section at my local specialty grocery store and found a cheese called, ready for this? Drunken Goat. I smile, and read one thing that causes my hand to drop the cheese wedge in my basket. “Semi-soft goat cheese Immersed in Red wine.” Semi-soft goat cheese; never had that before. Ok, Check. Immersed in Red Wine, OK, Sold!

Ok so that isn’t why I am writing about it. It is some of the most superior cheese I have ever tasted. It just might be my new favorite cheese. Move over Feta, we have a new love for Cristy. It comes in wheels. Has a purplish rind outside from being soaked in red wine for 3 to 4 days. It is semi-soft, like cheddar. And the rind is soft and edible (See tasting with my eyes). Smells like goat cheese with a sweet hint (tasting with my noise). Taste is creamy, almost like a good chèvre but doesn’t have the flaky texture I am use too with goat cheeses. The flavor is not strong, but not too weak that you will not forget the piece of cheese you just ate (tasting with my mouth). So despite that it is imported from Spain, I just wanted to recommend a good cheese when I can across one. I will come up with a recipe later.

Bon Appétit

American Cheese

I love cheese. And if you love cheese I believe we can all remember when our love affair began. Mine has two distinct events. Both happened to be when I was traveling overseas. The first was in Greece, and I fell in love with this white stuff called Feta. It tasted like earthy mushrooms and meadows filled with wild flowers. I could picture an old Greek man with his wishing beads in one hand, a cigarette hanging from his mouth while churned cheese with his other hand. My second epiphany with cheese was while I was in Paris. I had bought a baguette sandwich with brie and butter for 3 Euros from a street vendor. The brie was like butter in my mouth and the flaky baguette was falling all over my shirt, but I didn’t care, because it was simply heaven in my mouth. And possible the best meal I had while in Paris.

So when I came across the book titled “The Cheese Chronicles: A Journey through the Making and Selling of Cheese in American, From Field to Farm to Table,” by Liz Thorpe, I had to read it. Why not educate myself and understand my love affair with cheese just a little bit more. Who is Liz Thorpe you ask? Well she is the vice president of Murray’s Cheese in New York City. She is the women top chefs like Thomas Keller call to get the best cheese for their restaurants. But you ask is there good cheese in America?

That was the first thing I asked myself when reading the book’s cover. All I know of American cheese is well American Kraft singles. You know the pre-packaged stuff your mom would buy along with bologna and white bread. The stuff that was suppose to taste good, but didn’t. That’s my image of American cheese. Other cheeses like Parmesan and Ricotta came when I worked in an Italian Restaurant during college. But those cheeses still didn’t wake me up to the essence of cheese. I am still not certain that America can produce good cheese like the Europeans, but this statement comes from my lack of tasting or finding good American made cheese to date.

The book is a page turner, a learning experience, a cultural cheese awakening, and for me just downright full of knowledge I didn’t have before. Without boring you to death with details because if you want the details you should read the book. The book not only opens your mind to the world of cheese, but also opens your mind to the world of cheese in America. Thorpe tells us how to identify cheese. Step One: Where is your cheese from? Cow, Goat, or Sheep’s milk. Step Two: Taste (Taste with your eyes first, noise second, mouth third). Step Three: Cheese Families. Fresh, Bloomy, Washed Rind, Uncooked Pressed, Cooked Pressed, and Blue. Once you have the basics, it’s a journey through America’s history and pioneering with cheese and making it. Thorpe often gives personal stories of cheese makers she has met along her travels to find good cheese. These stories are entertaining, and informative.

By the end of the book it almost makes me want to leave my 3 bedroom suburban home in Orange County, California and buy some land and goats in Northern California or Vermont. Once there I can make my own feta cheese to sell at the local farmers' markets. And maybe, just maybe one day my cheese will make it on a plate at Thomas Keller’s restaurant. But that will not be happening. Realistically I am going to pay more attention to the cheese makers pushing cheese at my local farmer’s market or any farmer’s market that I visit in my travels. I will look for Artisanal American made cheese when I shop for cheese at the grocery store first, instead of going straight for the imported cheese from France and Greece.
American cheese makers, some good and some not so good start out small. Selling and marketing their cheese on their own. Hoping to get someplace like Murray’s to buy their cheese then to resale their cheese to restaurants like the French Laundry. While others are just happy to sell it at the Farmer’s Market, American cheese makers are like artist, they are just happy to make it. Thorpe said this in her book “American cheese is one of the cornerstones of preserving responsible agriculture, respectful animal husbandry, and all-around good eating in this big country if ours.”

So go out there and buy a wedge of something. Something made in America. Something that we hope will taste good, but if not it is the experience we are after not the hype. And yes read Liz Thorpe’s book as well if you want to deepen your knowledge of cheese. ISBN 978-0-06-145116-4.