I was apprehensive about choosing hard sheep’s cheese (think Pecorino, Manchego) as this month’s cheese of choice for the Cheese, Please! Challenge. It’s not a cheese that springs to mind when you think about cooking, except perhaps for pasta. And so it was with some trepidation that I pressed the button and issued the call.
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Tag Archives: sheep’s milk cheese
October’s Cheese, Please! Recipe Round Up – Hard Sheep’s Cheese
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Another Eight Cheeses…
Never one to miss the opportunity to try several new cheeses in one sitting, I recently hiked across to Brixton again to one of Ned Palmer’s tastings at Cannon and Cannon. If you missed the last instalment, ‘Eight Cheeses in One Day’, you can check out what I snaffled last time here.
The theme of this tasting was ‘Cheese and Culture’ in which Ned attempted to show how cheese has evolved through history according to the environments and societies which produced it. With two hours ticking on the clock and just eight cheeses on the plate (just eight cheeses!), Ned himself admitted that it was never going to be a comprehensive and chronological survey of global cheese history but it was certainly interesting. I won’t attempt to reproduce everything he said, partly because he might sue me and partly mainly because I drank some beer and can’t remember. But I will tell you about the lovely cheeses and drop a few nuggets of information in as I recall them.
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Spenwood Cheese Soufflé with Blackberry Sauce
First of all, let me apologise for what must be the worst photograph of a soufflé in existence. I still don’t have a proper camera after I smashed mine, the soufflé collapsed when I went to find my phone and the addition of the sauce makes it look like some sort of CSI crime scene. But trust me, it does taste really good!
I came up with the idea for this recipe whilst I was on holiday in France. The shops and markets were full of hard sheep’s milk cheeses and one stallholder told me that they are traditionally eaten with black cherry jam. I took a jar away with me and it was an amazing combination, the saltiness of the cheese contrasting with the sweetness of the fruit and sugar. It got me thinking about British combinations; I tried Spenwood cheese for the first time a few months ago, a sheep’s milk cheese made in Berkshire and thought that it would go well with blackberries – so then I just had to wait for the blackberries to appear! It’s slightly different to the French combination, as the blackberry sauce is tarter than the jam but still lovely (it would be interesting to try with a blackberry jam).
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Millstone
I choose a cheese to write about in a myriad of different ways. Some I hunt out because I’ve heard great things about them or because they have an intriguing history. Some are given to me by travelling friends. Some I panic buy at the last minute because I’ve just remembered. But this week’s cheese is the first that I’ve bought because I was amused by the fact that it looks like its name.
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October’s Cheese, Please! Challenge – Hard Sheep’s Cheese
If last month’s Cheese, Please! Challenge featured probably the most common cheese consumed in the UK, this month is all about a cheese that’s much under-used. I wavered about picking sheep’s milk (or ewe’s milk) cheese for fear of scaring people away but then I figured – what’s a challenge if it’s not a challenge?! And besides, when it comes to devising recipes, these cheeses pair beautifully with seasonal fruits, preserves and nuts; with fig jam, black cherry jam and quince jelly or eaten simply with a slice of pear or apple and a handful of walnuts or almonds.
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Summertime…and the City is cheesy…
Back in May, when I sat huddled in my thermal slanket, the hail battering against the windows, booking a place on a Cheese Walk in the City of London seemed like a good idea. Hopefully it would be a typical English day in July: overcast, fairly chilly and with a middling to high chance of a freezing downpour. So I admit that when the day dawned with the kind of heat that melts pigeon’s feet into the tarmac, it suddenly seemed less appealing. And throw in a tube journey and consuming large quantities of cheese and wine in the sun and the prospect started to feel more like appalling. But I take my role as intrepid cheese correspondent seriously (coupled with the fact I’d already shelled out for it upfront) and so I donned the Factor 30 and set forth valiantly.
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Spenwood
There’s been a distinct lack of ovine action on this blog so far and I think that’s partly because I didn’t realise just how many sheep’s cheeses were out there (remember, I did start this blog from the premise of ‘I am a cheese ignoramus’). In my defence, I think it’s fair to say that most people in the UK don’t associate sheep with cheese. In fact, let’s face it – given that almost a third of primary pupils think cheese is made from plants, they probably don’t associate cows with cheese either. But some of our favourite cheeses are derived from the woolly-backed beasts: Pecorino, Feta, Manchego and Roquefort, to name but a few.
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Fromage Homage 