Two 'drunken' cheeses

By chance I've come across two cheeses lately that are both matured with the by-products of red wine. The first, last week, was at Al Pompiere in Verona where I tried a Monte Veronese Ubriaco (above, front) a local hard cows' milk cheese that had been soaked in grape must, and which was served with a sweet red onion marmalade.

Then back home I came across a fantastic cheese called Testun (pronounced tess-toon) at Zucca in Bermondsey Street - a smooth, tangy cheese which is apparently wrapped in nebbiolo vine leaves. I think it must be similar to the Testun al Barolo which is described here on the US cheese retailer Artisanal although the rind didn't have the same craggy appearance.

What this type of ageing process seems to result in is a more pliable consistency and a deeper more savoury flavour than you would find in a conventionally matured cheese and one that gives it a greater compatibility with red wine (although this article by the San Francisco Chronicle's cheese writer Janet Fletcher, suggests the contrary).

Both come into the category of ubriaco or 'drunken' cheeses, a description I must say I rather like.

Two simple, stunning ways to serve mozzarella

Most people I would guess use mozzarella one of two ways - in the classic insalata tricolore with tomatoes and avocado or to top a pizza. But I came across two brilliant new ways of serving it this week which I thought I'd share.

One was at our local wine bar and restaurant Flinty Red where the chef Matthew Williamson had topped it with a sharp little salad of shredded cabbage, capers, lemon and fried roughly torn bread.

The other was at the legendary River Cafe in London where it came with smashed chickpeas, roast artichokes and Italian erbette (lightly cooked greens)


Both looked beautiful, I think you'll agree and in each case made a lovely fresh-tasting, easy to assemble starter. Both relied on top class ingredients including great olive oil and super-fresh bufala mozzarella.

You might think that would be hard to get hold of if you don't have a good cheese shop nearby but you can buy it direct from Italy online from sites such as nifeislife.com

La Tur - a gorgeous Italian cheese

We went out for dinner to friends last night and they served just one cheese - a gorgeous triple cream cheese called La Tur. It sounds French but in fact comes from the Langhe region of Piedmont - maybe why it went so well with the Dolcetto we were drinking.

According to this site belonging to Clarks Speciality Foods it's a mixture of pasteurized cows, sheep and goats milk and has a delicate, slightly lactic earthy flavour and the most wonderful creamy silky consistency as if it's about to melt. My friend actually bought it at Waitrose where it seems to be stocked in larger branches. A real find and at £4.95 - enough for six - quite a bargain.

Incidentally I like the sound of the Clarks Italian cheese selection which includes La Tur, a cave aged Tallegio, Gorgonzola Dulce, Ubriaco which is rubbed with red wine must and Basajo, a blue cheese that's soaked in sweet wine

An interesting veggie lasagne

I'm never totally convinced by veggie lasagnes but this open lasagne, ordered at our local Italian Rosemarino, was a cracker. Granted it doesn't look much (though my hastily snatched low-light picture doesn't help) but the combination of ingredients - spinach, walnuts and fontina cheese - was spot on.

I found some similar recipes on the Bon Appetit site here and this recipe site so it's probably just a question of adding some chopped toasted walnuts to your spinach (along with some other ingredients, obviously) and using a mild, melting cheese like Fontina. Or maybe making a walnut paste as Georgio Locatelli does in his superb Made in Italy Food and Stories. Walnuts seem to be a much more common element in savoury dishes in Italy than they are here.

Anyway I've asked the restaurant for the recipe. Cross fingers they're willing to share it! (And they've come up with the goods! See below though I reckon it would serve at least 8)

Lasagna Vegetarina
Open lasagne of spinach, ricotta, walnut & fontina
(serves 6)

Ingredients

For the filling:
1kg of baby leaf spinach
1kg of Ricotta cheese
200g of toasted, chopped walnuts
4 large shallots
3 cloves of garlic
250g of Fontina cheese
Salt, pepper & nutmeg (to-taste)

For the pasta dough:
550g of plain flour
4 whole eggs & 6 egg yolks
2 tbsp of good olive oil
Pinch of salt
Semolina for dusting

(Good fresh lasagne sheets can also be used as a short cut but if you have a pasta machine it’s nice to use it)

Method
Pasta:
• Combine all ingredients in a food mixer until the dough forms a ball • Rest in fridge for at least an hour • Roll by hand to a thickness of 3mm • Feed through a pasta machine dusting with semolina if necessary until you get to the second thinnest setting • Cut into squares of roughly the same size, approximately 10cm
• Blanche in boiling water for 3mins then refresh in iced water • Pat dry and coat lightly with olive oil, chill until required

Filling:
• Thinly slice the shallots and garlic and cook gently in olive oil until soft but not coloured • Add the spinach and cook until wilted • Cool quickly and use a sieve to squeeze out any excess water • Mix in the ricotta & chopped walnuts
• Grate in a little nutmeg and season with salt & pepper • Thinly slice the Fontina cheese

Assembly: • Place a pasta sheet on an oiled tray • Spread 3 tbsp of the spinach mix evenly over the pasta and top with a slice of Fontina • Repeat twice, (its nice to place the pasta sheets at different angles), bake for ten minutes • Serve with good Italian bread (we recommend fresh focaccia) and a salad of your choosing.

For an English twist ‘Rachel’ goats cheese, from the White Lake Cheese Co. in Somerset, makes an excellent alternative to Fontina.

Rosemarino is at 1 York Place, Bristol BS8 1AH.

Warm pasta salad with tomatoes, mint, lemon and ricotta salata

I've never used ricotta salata before but was urged to try it the other day by Patricia Michelson of La Fromagerie. Here's what it looks like from the outside . . .


And cut side upwards . . .


It's a salted type of ricotta that's hard enough to grate . . .


Patricia suggested using it to make a simple plate of pasta with fresh tomatoes which I expected to taste like a pasta dish but tasted more like a warm salad. Which is what I've called it. Lovely, light and summery for the warm weather I'm sure we're going to have sometime this summer. Aren't we (she asks hopefully?)

Serves 2

225g penne
400g ripe tomatoes, chopped small
4 tbsp olive oil
leaves from 2 sprigs of fresh mint, torn into small pieces
rind and juice of half a lemon
75g ricotta salata, coarsely grated
salt and pepper

Bring a large pan of water to the boil, add salt and cook the pasta for the time recommended on the pack. Chop the tomatoes small and mix with the olive oil and torn mint leaves. Strain the pasta reserving a couple of tablespoons of cooking water. Return to the pan and tip in the chopped tomatoes, lemon juice and rind and reserved pasta water. Season to taste with pepper and a little salt. Serve in warm bowls generously scattered with the grated ricotta salata.

I have a feeling some lightly cooked peas would be good with this too. You could also add a few snipped chives.

Ubriaco Capra: a great cheese to pair with red wine

I'm always on the lookout for cheeses to match red wine (which clashes with so many cheeses, especially washed rind and blues) but had forgotten about Ubriaco an Italian cheese matured with the skins, pips and seeds left over from red wine making.

As a result it has a savoury, vinous taste of its own which seems to chime in perfectly with red wine, especially if you eat the rind - as you're encouraged to.

The only downside is that it's not cheap. This version which I bought from Selfridges Food Hall cost £38.50 per kilo. According to a quick search on Google it comes from the Veneto, is made of goats milk and is matured in the skins of Traminer grapes. I think it would be great with a good Valpolicella or any medium-bodied Italian red come to that. It was certainly fine with a Côte du Rhône Villages.

I seem to remember buying a slightly cheaper version in Waitrose a while ago which may still have it in their larger branches.

Gnocchi alla Romana

Despite the fact that I've been taught a couple of times how to make gnocchi I've never managed to master it - or at least not to achieve the featherlight consistency that makes it such a delicious thing to eat.

However when I was casting around for recipes for students recently I remembered this easy-to-make Roman version which is really surprisingly delicious. The thing to remember is to get the gnocchi mixture completely cold before you start trying to stamp it out.

And yes, for those of you might feel inclined to remind me, following my blogpost the other day, that it contains both eggs and cheese, I accept that it does. But the crucial thing is that it doesn't taste like it ;-).

Serves 4-6

600ml whole milk (i.e. not semi-skimmed)
150g fine semolina (spotted in Waitrose the other day. Also in Italian delis and some Asian shops)
2 medium eggs or 2 large egg yolks
75g parmesan or Grana Padano cheese
A good slice of butter
Salt, pepper and nutmeg

Pour the milk into a heavy saucepan and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Bring to the boil then lower the heat and shake over the semolina gradually, stirring vigorously as you so so. Replace the pan over the heat and stir until the semolina is thick enough to stand a spoon in. Cool for a few minutes then beat in the eggs and three quarters of the cheese. Spread the semolina into a rectangle about 1 cm deep over a wetted baking sheet and leave to get completely cold and firm .(A couple of hours at least. I didn't leave it quite long enough so it was still slightly soft when I started to cut it up.)

Heat the oven to 200°C/Gas 6. Thickly butter a baking dish. Stamp out circles from the semolina with a scone cutter or the rim of a wine glass and arrange them overlapping in the dish, tucking the offcuts underneath and down the sides. (Or simply cut it into squares and arrange them in the dish).

Melt the butter and pour over the gnocchi then sprinkle generously with the remaining parmesan. Bake the gnocchi for about 20-25 minutes until the top is nicely browned. Serve with a simple tomato sauce and/or a salad.

Caciocavallo: an Italian cheese discovery

One of the unexpected bonuses of attending the chefs' conference Identita earlier this week was the artisanal food stalls which had some really great cheeses and salumi.

There was some pretty impressive aged Grana Padano, the less feted cousin of Parmigiano Reggiano (aka Parmesan) but the one that really stood out for me was this gourd-shaped Caciocavallo from Puglia (I think) though I've discovered from Juliet Harbutt's World Cheese Book, which I'll be reviewing shortly, that this type of pasta filata (stretched curd) cheese is made all over southern Italy. Some like Caciocavallo Silano have their own PDO - actually that may be the only one - and like other cheeses there are younger and older versions.

This was 24 months old and wonderfully rich, nutty and crumbly, the sort of cheese you could nibble at the end of a meal with a good red wine.

The Grana Padano crew were also showing off different aged cheeses with accompanying wines, a session I unfortunately missed. They paired the 12 month old with a 2007 Valpolicella Ripasso, the 18 month old with a 2006 Chianti Classico Riserva and a Salice Salentino Riserva and the 27 month with a 2005 Amarone, which I can imagine would have worked well. (This type of hard, grainy cheese is one of the few that reliably goes with red wine, particularly aged Italian reds)

BTW if you're interested in Caciocavallo there's a very interesting article on how it differs from Provolone on about.com here.

Asparagus, Brie and Parma Ham rolls

Another riff on asparagus and cheese which really do go very well together. I came across the idea in the London restaurant Polpo where they were serving it with Taleggio. That I think would be the ideal cheese but as I was making a cut price version I used Brie. Perfect for a nibble with drinks.

Makes 12 - enough for 4-6 depending on what else you’re eating

A bunch of asparagus
A small (135g) pack of good quality Brie or - better still -Taleggio
85g pack of parma ham

Take each of the asparagus spears and break off the stalk about two thirds of the way down from the tip. Put them in a frying pan with a little water. Bring to the boil and cook for about 3-4 minutes until just tender. Drain and set aside. Cut the Brie into long slices, remove the rind and cut into small strips. Carefully remove each slice of parma ham and tear or cut it lengthwise down the centre. Take each spear, add one of the pieces of cheese then wrap one of the strips of ham round them. Season with a little freshly ground black pepper. You could also serve this as a starter drizzled with a little olive oil

Pecorino Toscano

I’ve spent the last couple of days at an organic estate in Tuscany which produces almost all its own food - olive oil, flour, bread, cheese, vegetables and, of course, wine. The cheese, a sheeps' cheese called Pecorino is the most common type produced in Tuscany and comes from milk produced from the sheep who graze the estate.

They have two main types - pecorino fresco, the young cheese which is served with antipasti such as bruschetti and salumi (cold meats) and a more mature one which is aged for 6-9 months and grated like parmesan (which is not made in Tuscany). Both are unpasteurized - the cheeses are subjected to heat treatment but it doesn’t go above 60°C. It’s milder than a parmesan which makes it a good companion for the local Chianti (and for other red wines - a useful attribute). The Tuscans also eat it with honey for breakfast or at the end of a meal.

The whey that is drained off the cheese is made into ricotta. Traditionally that would be eaten very fresh - it only has a shelf-life of 3 days but the LoFranco family who own the estate have found a way to preserve it in various spreads and spoonable desserts like a strawberry and ricotta mousse and ‘briachella’ a tiramisu-like mixture of ricotta, cantucci (traditional hard dipping biscuits) and their own vin santo (the famous Tuscan sweet wine).

Unfortunately I couldn’t see it any of the cheeses being made in the Caseificio (dairy) because the ewes are lambing at this time of year but they normally make them from December to July. You can buy the cheeses - and other products - direct by ordering a catalogue from the website.

Argentinian and Italian cheese

Apologies for the gap in posts on the blog - I've just spent 10 days away in Argentina which I think it's fair to say is not one of the world's great cheese destinations. At least not so far but if the wine business carries on the way it's going an artisanal cheese industry can't be far behind. Surely not all the milk can go to make Dulce de Leche.

It's not that they don't eat cheese, it's just that it's not massively exciting. There's quite a lot of Cheddar-style hard cheese and pasteurized Camembert which tends to be served before meals along with ham and chorizo (see above) and some slightly rubbery Mozzarella though it did form the basis of one of the most appealing dishes I had while I was away: a mozzarella and fig salad with toasted almonds at 1884, the restaurant of the country's best known chef Francis Mallman.

I also had a very tasty cheese and onion empanada and some seriously good Brie at one of the posh dinners though I suspect that was imported from France. (The Park Hyatt at Buenos Aires has its own cheese room)

I was intending to post about Valentine's Day cheeses before I went away but somehow missed the boat but I did come up with the perfect cheese for a romantic dinner - a caprino tartufo from Piemonte in Italy (below).

It's a very delicate, creamy goats' milk cheese decorated with fine slivers of black truffles which lend their flavour to the whole cheese. Of course romance shouldn't begin and end on Valentine's Day so there's no reason why you shouldn't serve it whenever you want to give your Significant Other a special treat. It goes fabulously well with champagne or a sexy red burgundy.

* Just remembered another good cheesy thing in Argentina: grilled provolone. They take big slices and put it on the asado (barbecue) for the tiny minority who are not into steak.

The ultimate cheese and ham 'sandwich'

Well, not really a sandwich but it tasted like the best cheese and ham sandwich you can imagine! It was a dish in a great new Italian restaurant in Soho called Bocca di Lupo (which literally translates as 'the wolf's mouth' but probably means something like the ravenous eater) and was described as Crescentini with finocchiona, speck and squacquerone cheese.

What arrived was a little deep fried pillow of bread topped with finely sliced fennel sausage and a gorgeous pool of creamy fondue-like melted cheese. Unbelievably delicious!

Squacquerone, which probably isn't pronounced to rhyme with macaroni but looks as if it should be, is apparently a fresh Italian cream cheese that's popular in Emilia Romagna and the Marche region of Italy. And Soho now, too