Christmas Cheese Boards

Wednesday, 12 December 2007

Hard, Soft, Smelly, Creamy, Cheesy or Blue what ever your preference our cheese expert Kevin Sheridan is here to give you the low down on the do's and don'ts this Christmas

Kevin Sheridan a Brief History
Sheridan's Cheese mongers was founded in 1995 by brothers Seamus and Kevin Sheridan, when they started selling Irish farmhouse cheeses from their stall at the Galway Saturday market.  They soon opened their first shop in Galway, stocking Irish & European farmhouse cheeses, olive oils, cured meats, honeys and many other artisan foods. 

In 1997, joined by a third partner, Fiona Corbett, Sheridan's Cheese mongers was involved in the set up of the now well-established Temple Bar Food Market in Dublin and a second shop on South Anne Street in Dublin city centre followed shortly afterwards.    In August 2003, Sheridan's opened the new Wine Shop Upstairs above the Galway Cheese shop, selling over one hundred wines, predominantly Italian (all of which are exclusive to Sheridan's) as well as wines from France, Spain and Portugal. 
Currently Sheridan's Cheese mongers operate nine market stalls weekly, have opened a second Dublin location in Pembroke Lane, Dublin 4, and operate a concession at Ardkeen quality food store in Waterford.
Sheridan's have expanded the wholesale business operation, and export Irish cheeses to Europe and supply their products to markets, restaurants and shops throughout Ireland.
The warehouse which centrally supplies all arms of the business operates the old railway station, Virginia road, Carnaross Co. Meath. Retail customers are welcome to visit our Co. Meath warehouse where we have a large range of our foods for sale; including wines.

What would be on the perfect Beginners Christmas Cheese?
. Comte from Marcel Petite is the perfect beginner's cheese for any time of year. Master affineurs Marcel Petite from eastern France select and age these huge cheeses in the Fort St Antoine, high in the Jura mountains and send us the very best wheels, the top 5% of production.
. The cheese is sweet and fruity, with fantastic aromas of walnuts, caramel, beef stock and caramelized onions.
. Their Comte really demonstrates the difference between run of the mill stuff, and quality artisan cheese of the same name, yet it is not strong, smelly or aggressive on the palate. This makes it perfect for both the beginner and the seasoned cheese lover.

How to buy Cheese
. Little and often is the secret to buying cheese.
. Your eyes should be able to tell you whether this is the case, look for lively pieces, with no cracking or mould on the surface of the paste, as this indicates that the piece has dried out slightly and is not in top condition.
. It should be noted in passing that the blue veins in farmhouse cheddars is a perfect natural part of their development, and should not be viewed as grounds for complaint.

Question's for your Cheese monger
. Ask the cheesemonger about the cheese; who made it?;
. where does it come from?; how was it made?; how old is it?
. Anyone serious about sourcing and selling the best cheeses should be able to answer these questions.
. If possible, taste the cheese, even if you have had it before, artisan cheeses can vary considerably from wheel to wheel. This is rather like having a taste of wine in a restaurant to check that everything is in order before committing to buying the bottle.

How to store Cheese
. Cheese is best stored in the vegetable compartment of the fridge, the warmest part of the machine, wrapped in waxed cheesepaper.
. Soft cheeses do not generally keep as well as hard cheeses, as their development involves a process of breakdown.

What to drink with the cheese?
Below are specific examples of
. Wines which should pair well with the cheeses.
. Comte: Chateau de Fuisse, Pouilly Fuisse, O'Briens.
. Montgomery Cheddar: eg Chateau Moulinet, Pomerol 2000, O'Briens.
. Colston Bassett Stilton: Ruby Port, eg Nieport, Redmonds (?)
. Chateau de Tracy (Pouilly Fume), goat's cheeses

Why should we eat cheese at Christmas?
. Traditionally winter has always been a time for cheese eating.
. You have to remember that cheese is primarily a means of storing the nutrition in milk from a time of plentiful supply( late Spring, Summer and Autumn) to a time when there is little milk available( late Autumn through to early Spring).
. In the summer people could eat fresh cheeses, and milk, whereas the winter would generally have been a time for hard cheeses.
. In the days before central heating people would have tended to include more fat in their diets as a means of insulation against the cold - and even nowadays we tend to eat heartier fare during the winter months.
. Whether served melted in dishes such as Fondue and Raclette or at the end of a meal, cheese is a wonderful winter fuel.
. Christmas is a time for a little indulgence, and, sadly, one of the few times when people really go out of their way to buy the best of everything, including cheese.
. Many cheeses are at their best at Christmas (see below) and it is a wonderful time to sit down, relax and enjoy some good cheese in top condition.

What are the traditional cheeses to eat at Christmas and what Irish Cheese should we eat?
A classic cheeseboard generally consists of a hard, a soft and a blue cheeses, and in each of theses catergories there are cheeses which are at their very best a Christmas.

Hard
Christmas is a wonderful time for slow-ripening hard cheeses such as cheddars, gruyères and aged goudas, all of which are at their best at around 12-18 months.
Cheeses from Summer/ Autumn of the previous year are now coming to full maturity. Think of these cheeses as postcards from summer past.

Food Accompaniments for Hard Cheeses: Cheddars with bite are particularly good with apples, although chutneys can also work well. Goudas may be served with cumin seeds, although are possibly left to their own devices. Comte is good with black cherry jam, and even quince paste. Gruyere can be good with caramelised onions. Parmesan is fantastic with pears, walnuts, and even celery.

Coolea(cow's milk, macroom, co. cork)
. Coolea is a cow's milk cheese made in Coolea, near Macroom in the rocky hills on the Cork/Kerry border.
. It has been made there since 1980 when a Dutch woman, Helen Willems, began to make Dutch style cheese from the milk of her husband, Dick's, herd. Nowadays Coolea is made by their son Dick Jnr.
. This is a classic Gouda style cheese made in traditional four and eight kilo rounds and is characterized by a yellow wax rind and a hard golden amber paste. It is now made from the milk of a neighbouring herd of Holsteins and Freisians.

Etivaz AOC(Traditional Rennet, Raw Cow's Milk):
. Is an incredible gruyère-style cheese from the Vaud Alps, in Western Switzerland. All production takes place at altitudes between 1000-2000m above sea level, and is made exclusively using raw milk from herds which graze the rich alpine pastures during these months.

Montgomery Cheddar(Traditional Rennet, Raw Cow's Milk): or 'Monty'
. Benchmark English farmhouse cheddar, no other cheddar even comes close.
. This is traditional Somerset, cloth-bound, raw milk cheddar at its inimitable best. Monty is full of sunshine, butter and just enough acidity to cleanse the palate and keep you coming back for more.
. Perfect for the classic Christmas dinner cheeseboard.

Blue Cheeses
Christmas has long been associated with blue cheese, notably Stilton, and with good reason. The ripening period for most blues is such that wheels from the second flourish of growth in September are coming into their prime around this time. Winter weather is also somehow conducive to eating blue cheese, the richness of which is often too much at other times of year.

Food Accompaniments for Blue Cheeses:
Wonderful with many accompaniments. Blues go especially well with pears, walnuts, pecans, and bitter leaves such as endives, esp. Roquefort and Gorgonzola. Stilton and Cashel are great with quince paste. Honey tends to be slightly less successful.

STILTON (COLSTON BASSETT)(Vegetarian Rennet, Pasteurised Cow's Milk):
. Because of rigorous, longstanding name protection legislation only six dairies in the UK are permitted to produce a blue cheese and call it Stilton.
. Of these six Colston Bassett Dairies of Nottinghamshire is universally considered to produce the finest Stilton, and this is the one we stock.
. This Stilton is at once crumbly and creamy with a rich blue veining and a smooth ivory paste. The cheese melts perfectly in the mouth, disappearing down in to the palate with a medium strength blue flavour that finishes beautifully without any rawness. We sell our Stilton at 3-4 months.
. Another classic traditional Christmas cheese, and a perfect match with Port.

FOURME D'AMBERT AOC(Traditional Rennet, pasteurised cow's milk):
. This barrel-shaped blue cheese from Auvergne is amongst the oldest styles of cheese in France, where it is often used in cooking.
. This semi-soft cow's milk blue has a mild, milky, almost cow-y flavour and, unlike most Fourme d'Ambert, melts perfectly in the mouth without any trace of guminess. Try it with a fortified Muscat de Rivesaltes(VDN).            
         
CASHEL BLUE( Vegetarian Rennet, Pasteurised Cow's Milk):
. Probably the best known of all the Irish farmhouse cheeses, Cashel is a world-class Irish cheese, every bit as good as anything the continent has to offer.
. The unctuous, creamy interior contains only the faintest trace of chalkiness towards the centre, whilst nearer the rind the paste bulges generously.
. The blue flavour is sweet, smooth and complex with no trace of aggression, as is the case with the very best mature blues.
. The Grubbs believe that Cashel is at its best when made between July and October and aged 16-20 weeks, and it is precisely these wheels which we sell at Christmas time.
. Cashel goes wonderfully with quince paste, and partners particularly well with Vin Santo.

       
SEMI-SOFT:

Whilst many of the cheese dos and don'ts which exist today have been informed by centuries of Continental- and notably French- tradition, it is important to note that Irish farmhouse cheesemaking comes from a different background and that Irish cheeses should therefore be treated slightly differently.
Irish farmhouse cheeses are the expression not only of a terroir, but also of individual cheese makers, of a persona.
Conversely in Ireland our artisan cheese tradition is based exclusively on a one producer- one cheese principle, ie Milleens is only made on the Beara Peninsula by the Steele family, Gubbeen is only made by the Ferguson family on their farm in Schull.
 
Durrus
. This one of the consistently great Irish farmhouse cheeses.
. This semi-soft washed rind cheese has been made by Jeffa Gil at her hillside farmhouse in West Cork since 1979.
. The aroma is one of grass, hay and wet soil, punctuated with only mild hints of the pungence so characteristic of many washed rind cheeses.
. The flavour is long, round and earthy with- depending on condition- understated farmyard notes. There are also secondary nuances of milk, wild flowers, fungi and undergrowth.
. The flavour is uniquely and unmistakably Durrus, a combination of the Coomkeen terroir and the personality of the cheesemaker. It is a wonderfully complex cheese, so much so that even fairly young wheels are full of marvellously subtle flavours and aromas.

SOFT CHEESE
 Soft cheese is somewhat of a tricky proposition in the heart of winter as most soft cheeses are short-ripening and at their best between May and October. Thankfully the coming into season of one of the greatest of all soft cheeses, Vacherin Mont d'Or, more than makes up for the paucity of other soft cheese options. 

Food Accompaniments for Soft Cheeses: Bloomy rind cheeses: Generally best served on their own. Young triple cream cheeses can be served with strawberries (just about). Brie de Meaux can be served alongside cornichons, although it is questionable to what extent this complements the cheese. Try serving it with walnuts instead, with even a tiny drop of honey.

 
Vacherin Mont d'Or AOC( Traditional Rennet, Raw Cow's Milk):
. This incomparable soft seasonal cheese from the Jura is made using raw milk from cows grazing above a height of 700 metres.
. Mont d'Or production is only permitted between 15August and 15 March. The best wheels are made between October and February making it the ultimate Christmas cheese.
. Mont d'Or is made in small(500g) and large versions(3 kg). Both are packaged in round wooden boxes, and encircled by a strip of spruce or fir which stops this runniest of cheeses from collapsing outwards. 
. The small Mont d'Or are often baked in their boxes with garlic and white wine to make a perfect after dinner mini fondue.

GOAT'S MILK:

December is not a good time for fresh goat's milk cheeses. Far better to go for a hard goat's cheese that was made at the height of the season, as it is the only way to relish these wonderful flavours during the long winter.

CLONMORE (Vegetarian Rennet, Pasteurised Goat's Milk):
. Tom Biggane and his wife Lena have been making Clonmore cheese on their farm outside Charleville since 2001.
. Clonmore is a small, gouda-shaped cheese with a beige waxed exterior and a bone-white paste, intermittently freckled with small holes.
. Make no mistake, this is a wonderful hard goat's cheese. It is in no way sharp or soapy yet has a distinctive, smooth flavour that can be amazingly more-ish.
. This is a great Irish cheese which deserves to be more widely known

Killeen:
Marion Roeleweld has been making Killeen's goat's cheese at the Killeen Millhouse outside Balinasloe for the past year or two.
Killeen goat's is a gouda cheese, in the classic dutch style
Marion makes a range of gouda-style cheeses under her Killeen label - goat's, plain cow's, and herb and garlic.
The goat's cheese is made from the milk of her own herd, whilst she buys in cow's milk from a local farmer. Marion is also the consultant cheesemaker for the award-winning Mossfield Organic Gouda.  

Cheese Knives

        There is a profusion of cheese knives on the market specifically designed for use with different cheeses. Some look like paint scrapers, other look like they are designed to pick stones out of horses hooves, most of this is absolute nonsense promoted by the gift industry. The job of the knife is to cut the cheese without ruining it, any knife which is suitable for this use will do the job.

General guidelines for accompaniments for the Cheeses

. Fresh and dried fruit can also go wonderfully on the cheeseboard, serving both as an accompaniment and, with fresh fruit, as a palate cleanser in between courses.
. Try and stick to seasonal fruits, which are better, cheaper, and better for the environment. In the depths of winter dried fruits such as dates, dried figs and dried apricots can be wonderful on the board.
. Otherwise try fruits such as grapes, cherries, apples, figs, plums and pears on the cheeseboard.           

When aggressive and sharp hard ewe's milk cheeses are good with honey, try them with black cherry jam when they are a little more fudge-y, like Ossau Iraty. They hard sheep's milk's cheeses, or Brebis of South West France can be delicious served with a little piment d'espelette jelly, or even a little powdered piment d'espelette sprinkled on top of the black cherry jam.      

www.sheridanscheesemongers.com

Other Irish Cheeses to Consider
. There are a whole host of lesser known Irish cheeses really worth seeking out this winter:
. Try some of Helen Finnegan's wonderfully Knockdrinna Meadow, a hear ewe's milk cheese from Kilkenny;
. Sean Fitzgerald's Cratloe Hills, back on song and wonderful for Christmas as the wheels from April have aged up and acquired that characteristic Cratloe sweetness;
. Ardrahan has been fantastic all year, cheesemaker Mary Burns is at the top of her game at the moment, for those who enjoy cheese with a bit of a whiff, this is the one to go for.

Progression of Flavours
 
. When tasting cheeses in sequence it is always advisable to progress from the mildest to the strongest. Prior to actually tasting the cheeses it can be difficult to ascertain which is actually the strongest, although you can usually have a fairly accurate idea before hand.
. The reason for tasting in this order is because strong flavours tend to overwhelm milder flavours, so that whilst you may be able to discern the differences between various goat's cheeses at the beginning of a tasting, if you try and do this after tasting a big mouthful of strong and salty Roquefort you won't taste a thing.
. Fresh cheeses will almost invariable be the mildest and blues will usually be the strongest.
. Hard gruyere-style cheeses can range in flavour from mild to fairly strong, but should never be aggressive, so it is usual to taste these before sharper cheeses such as cheddars and very mature sheep's cheeses.

Cheese Accompaniments

. The idea of cheese accompaniments can be traced back to a time when cheese was primarily a form of nourishment, made in far less sanitary conditions than those required by law today.  As a consequence off-flavours, and faults in cheeses were far more common than they are nowadays.
. Yet because cheese was a primary source of nutrition, people didn't simply throw away cheeses in which off flavours had developed, but rather served them alongside whatever was available locally which could mask these off-flavours.
. In Spain and Portugal quince paste was used, in Italy they used various types of honey, in the French Basque Country they used black cherry jam, in England they served various chutneys etc, etc.
. Nowadays, even though these off-notes have for the most part been eliminated from the vast majority of cheeses, one finds that many of these pairings still work well together.

. Most cheese accompaniments are sweet, and are best served with more aggressive and/ or salty cheeses. So quince paste goes well with strong Manchegos (a name protected, Spanish ewe's milk cheese), but also with blue cheeses like Stilton and even Cashel. 
. Equally, strong salty pecorinos can be beautifully tempered by a sweet, floral honey, as can mature goat's cheeses.

Fresh cheeses, including young goat's cheeses: Honey, tomatoes, figs, black olives, tapenade, salad leaves. More mature goat's cheeses are ideal served with fig jam, or honey.

Soft Cheeses: Bloomy rind cheeses: Generally best served on its own. Young triple cream cheeses can be served with strawberries (just about). Brie de Meaux can be served alongside cornichons, although it is questionable to what extent this complements the cheese. Try serving it with walnuts instead, with even a tiny drop of honey.

Munster Washed Rind cheeses: Almost certainly better left as is. Munster can be wonderful with caraway seeds and even a gewürztraminer jelly if you can get it.

Blue Cheeses: Wonderful with many accompaniments. Blues go especially well with pears, walnuts, pecans, and bitter leaves such as endives, esp. Roquefort and Gorgonzola. Stilton and Cashel are great with quince paste. Honey tends to be slightly less successful.

Hard Cheeses: Cheddars with bite are particularly good with apples, although chutneys can also work well. Goudas may be served with cumin seeds, although are possibly left to their own devices. Comte is good with black cherry jam, and even quince paste. Gruyere can be good with caramelised onions. Parmesan is fantastic with pears, walnuts, and even celery.