10 March 2010
Tymsboro
A raw-milk goats cheese from Somerset, bought from Neals Yard Dairy
This is a little pyramid of goaty goodness, covered in a fuzzy white mould and with a layer of dark grey-green ash peeking out from underneath it. Inside the cheese is soft, and white, turning liquid underneath the rind. This is fresh new-season SPRING goat cheese and this means BABY GOATS as well as delicious fresh goats cheese.
It’s a smooth cheese, very soft and fluffy and mousse-like. The rind has a bit of chewy, solid texture to it. It reminds me of banana skin (in texture, not taste!), and it contrasts with the softness of the curd inside. The curdy paste tastes fresh and salty. It’s got a pale nuttiness – macadamia and almond – and a sweet creamy flavour. There are lots of bright fresh fruity tastes; green apples, lemon, a hint of gooseberry. The rind’s a little more bitter and astringent, tasting slightly of straw and slightly of splinters. more »
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9 March 2010
Kat graciously offered to come and lend her tastebuds to science. She is not a fan of blue cheese, and I wanted to test some tasty, friendly and approachable blues on some blue-hater. We got some sqidgy creamy dolcelatte and some spicy cashel blue, as well as an emergency backup goat cheese, and armed with knives and bread, we sat down to do some serious tasting.
Gorgonzola dolce
A blue cow’s cheese, made in Italy, and bought from The Tasting Room
We have a slice of this milky, melty, sparsely blue-smattered cheese. It’s pale and creamy, with a slightly darker rind. It’s got an almost jelly-like soft texture, smooth and silky, and very melt-in-the-mouth-ish.
This is very exciting! Kat smears a wedge of this soft cheese onto her piece of baguette, and chomps down on it. It ‘tastes of blue cheese’, unsurprisingly. It’s tangier than she anticipated, and soggy. She gamely eats the rest of the piece – it can’t be terrible – but declines to try another piece.
The taste – and this is not meant as a complaint, at all – reminds me a little of the toilets at Glastonbury. I’m not sure that I want to examine this thought any further. As well as a whiff of long-drop, this is a very sweet and milky blue cheese. The blue taste is quite mild, and the caramelly fudgey milk taste is like milkshake. This cheese is smooth, sweet and gentle. It’s possibly a little too unassuming but gorgeously gloopy.
Cashel Blue
This was written about in more detail here.
Next up is this soft and spicy blue; it’s been a favourite of mine for years. Kat tries it and declares that it ‘doesn’t taste of blue cheese’ (I dispute this assertion) and proceeds to munch her way through this with relish. SUCCESS!
Next up, in the Kat Cheese Challenge, will be some Roquefort.
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17 February 2010
Golden Cross
A raw-milk goat’s cheese, made in East Sussex and bought from Neal’s Yard Dairy
This is a white log, covered in a soft and fuzzy white mould. Slicing through, underneath the thin furry covering is an even thinner line of dark ash, and then the cheese itself – slightly translucent at the edges, opaque, bright white and with a slightly crumbly texture inside.
It’s got the putty-like, melt-in-the-mouth texture common in goat cheeses, and a good whomph of salt. (I love salt. I love salty cheeses. I might have mentioned this before.) There’s a grassiness, almost a seediness*, to the rind, which develops into a nutty sweetness in the centre. There’s a subtle goaty taste and bright citrus flavours; the usual lemon, but also something more fragrant and floral. It’s smooth and milky, sweet and salty.
* When I say seediness, I mean sort of seed you put in the ground to make a plant, not the dark alleyway, neon signs, shady character sort of seediness. This is not that sort of cheese. Now I’m trying to think of seedy cheeses, though. Grubby? Aged? Boozy? more »
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11 February 2010
Garrotxa
A semi-hard raw-milk goat cheese, from Catalonia, Spain, and bought from Brindisa.
We have a wedge from a small wheel of this cheese. It’s crumbly and a clean white in the centre, and covered outside in a distinctive mushroomy grey mould. My colleague Janos, one of today’s co-eaters of cheese, chooses this one because it looks rotten.
It tastes goaty, certainly, but not overwhelmingly so. There’s a fruity tang to this cheese, and an acidic sharpness that’s tempered with a yoghurty creamyness. I can detect a nutty undertone – hazelnuts and walnuts, particularly – as well as a fresh green herbal grassiness.
The rind is hard, and the outside of it feels slightly fuzzy in my mouth. It tastes subtly of blue cheese, is slightly astringent, and surprisingly sweet and nutty, mellow and smooth.
The right proportions of rind and cheese, eaten together, create a smooth, sweet creamy thing of WONDER, with the spicy mellow of the rind and the sharp salt of the paste balancing each other perfectly. Janos refuses to eat the rind and misses this magic. more »
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6 February 2010
Tomme de Fleurette
A soft unpasturised cow’s cheese, made in Switzerland and bought from KäseSwiss.
A round of soft white cheese, smattered with a bright white bloom, and striped with little ridges from where it’s been sitting on racks to mature. Inside it’s soft and pliable, the colour of cream.
This cheese is fantastically milky, and melts away to in my mouth. The thin delicate rind has a slightly crumbly texture, and tastes of heather, flowers and astringent herbs. This complements the utter drippiness of the inside of this cheese, which is smooth, creamy, gently sweet and nutty, and has just a hint of cocoa to it. more »
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27 January 2010
Cashel Blue
A blue pasturised cow’s cheese from Co. Tipperary, Ireland, bought from Neals Yard Dairy
This cheese has a thin, soft, slightly mouldy rind, and is pale yellow inside, with a hefty smattering of greeny-grey veining.
It’s soft and moist, and feels pliable. It melts in my mouth and is at once both wonderfully sweet and creamy, and fresh and sour. more »
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20 January 2010
An annatto-coloured cheddar from Wisconsin
My second US cheese is a four year old cheddar. FOUR? That’s very old for a cheddar, I think. I’m expecting something dense and dry and crumbly, and thick with crunchy lactic crystals. But this cheese is moist and soft. It’s also been coloured with annatto, and is a vivid orange colour. I grew up in Ireland, where cheese (and lemonade) come in red and white varieties, so this doesn’t bother me a jot. My cheese-eating chum, brought up on wholesome, un-frivolously-coloured English cheddar, is somewhat perturbed by the bright block we’re about to sample.
It’s not as intense as I expect it to be. It’s very sharp, tart and bitter – it reminds me of lemon pith – but there’s not much more to the taste than that. I’m spoiled, these days, and used to intense farmhouse cheddars, with pockets of different flavours – a new cheese in every bite! – and enough character that you can tell what the cow ate for breakfast that day. And, yes, a good whomph of manure. This cheese is uniform, and bland beneath the lemony sharpness. I think it’s spent its four years in some cold sealed sterile place.
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14 January 2010
My cheese was not as melty as this one
This is a soft raw milk cows’ cheese from Normandy, bought from Mons
My colleague Lars joins me for a cheesy lunch, and fancies something brie-ish oozing out of bread. We acquire a little wooden box of camembert from Mons – it’s the drippiest white-rind cheese they’ve got for sale today. It’s covered in a slightly patchy and uneven fuzzy white mould, and a rich, sticky orange rind peeks out from underneath this. The pale creamy yellow paste’s exposed when I cut a wedge, and while it’s not quite as oozy I’d count perfect, it’s still pretty moist.
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12 January 2010
I don’t know a huge amount about US cheeses. They’re not widely available in the UK – it’s a long way for a cheese to travel. So when a friend was spending Christmas in the states, I begged for some cheese to be smuggled back with her.
Snow White Goat Cheddar
This is a hard cheddar cheese, made in Wisconsin from pasturised goats milk
Cheddar made from goat’s cheese seems incorrect, but of course I can’t wait to taste it. The block I have doesn’t gleam like the snow outside, but it’s a very pale off-white. It’s opaque in the centre, and turns slightly translucent towards the crumbly brown rind. There’s also some greeny blue mould growing on the underside, but I believe this to be an unintended addition. more »
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7 January 2010
Chabis
A small raw-milk goats cheese, made in Sussex, bought from Neals Yard Dairy.
This is a squat little barrel of cheese. It’s covered with a soft fuzzy white mould on the outside, and is creamy white and crumbly in the middle.
It’s smooth, dense, and sweet, soft and incredibly creamy – much creamier than the average goat cheese, I think. There’s a really subtle fruityness hidden beneath the cream; green apples and a touch of lemon. In the finish there’s a hazelnut sweetness and a very gentle mellow yoghurty tang.
This isn’t a very complicated cheese. It will not pounce on you with its lemony sharpness, or sting your mouth with its prickly moulds. It’s a happy mouthful of mild and creamy goodness – comforting and unalarming and very tasty.
more »
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We have a wedge from a small wheel of this cheese. It’s crumbly and a clean white in the centre, and covered outside in a distinctive mushroomy grey mould. My colleague Janos, one of today’s co-eaters of cheese, chooses this one because it looks rotten.