Cheesy biscuits, biscuits for cheese

Hot on the heels of the Vache qui Rit incident I've rediscovered another old retro favourite, Roka Cheese Crispies which I can remember my parents serving with drinks when I was a kid. Frankly it would be hard to make a better cheese biscuit - they're incredibly light and crispy (as the name aptly suggests) with a real hit of what tastes like Cheddar but is actually Gouda cheese (the biscuits are Dutch). They're very good with a glass of medium dry amontillado which is how my parents served them but I've been enjoying them with red and sparkling wine. And the packaging, which looks as if it hasn't been changed since the company was founded in 1949, is simply great.

The other discovery is some charmingly rustic-looking Swedish crispbread from a company called Peter's Yard. I have to admit I'm not a big crispbread fan but these taste of wholemeal bread rather than cardboard - very plain, crisp and delicious. Because they're not overly salty or coated with seeds you can equally well eat them with sweet spreads like honey as savoury ones but they're obviously a great companion for cheese.

Not every cheese, I should say. I tried them with a strong cheddar that overwhelmed their subtle flavour but spreadable young goats' and sheeps' cheeses, mild Scandinavian slicing cheeses, hard sheeps' cheese and creamier blues would all work well. And cream cheese mixed with a little sour cream, chopped onion and dill topped with a few curls of smoked salmon would be fabulous.

Again the presentation - they come in a very cool tin - is great. A good present to take to a dinner party.

What are your favourite biscuits for cheese?

La Vache qui Rit - the next big thing?

I was really amused to find a triangle of the French processed cheese La Vache qui Rit on the cheeseboard of Eastside Inn, the very posh restaurant in London I went to the other day. Apparently it was the chef Bjorn van der Horst's favourite childhood cheese.

Fortunately the other cheeses were rather more substantial otherwise one would be more than a bit miffed at having to pay £15 for the experience (the cost of a cheese plate and a glass of wine). The others on that occasion were St Tola (a very good Irish goats cheese), Roquefort and what I thought sounded like L'Etivet, a strongly flavoured semi-hard cows' cheese from Switzerland which I hadn't come across before. (I've since been informed by the very helpful Food and Wine Diarist that it's L'Etivaz, so that's that mystery solved.)

Actually I have to admit that the Vache qui Rit - which of course means The Laughing Cow and which has rather a jolly website here - fitted in rather well, adding a mild creamy counterpoint to the cheeseboard.

Sets a precedent though: are we now going to find a bottle of Heinz salad cream served with our side-salad or a bar of Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate or a few Smarties tucked by our dessert if the chef has a fondness for them? Watch this space . . .

A good wine and cheese matching session

I went down to the launch of the Bristol Wine and Food Fair this week - literally, as it was held at the bottom of Park Street in the cellars of long-established wine merchant Avery's. (Great place - can't believe I've not got round to going there in my two years in the city)

Instead of just giving everyone a drink they'd set up some tables where you could taste different wines and cheeses together, the latter supplied by Trethowan's Dairy which makes the admirable Gorwydd Caerphily and also sells other cheeses (and great toasties!) from its shop in St Nick's market and various market stalls.

The pairings had been put together by Matt Eggens of Avery's who actually achieved a very high strike rate though, as always with these exercises, some came off better than others on the night. Here are my notes on the combinations:

Berkswell with Avery's NV Champagne
A hit. Champagne is surprisingly good with cheese and this was a rich style (apparently made in imitation of Bollinger!) Berkswell is a tangy, hard sheeps cheese which worked with it in the same way as a Parmesan or Pecorino would have done. I also liked it with the Gorwydd Caerphilly below ****

Gorwydd Caerphilly and Avery's Fine White Burgundy
The best match of the six. The smooth creamy burgundy was perfect with the delicate lactic cheese. A gorgeous combination that shows white wine is often better than red with cheese *****

Keen's Cheddar and Valtorto 2006
I liked both elements of this pairing. Keen's is one of the great cheddars and the Valtorto was a very attractive ripe, almost porty Douro red but not quite big enough to take on the cheese. A vintage port or an amontillado sherry would probably have worked better - or a less strong cheddar with the wine ***

Dorstone and Avery's Marlborough Pinot Noir 2007
A lovely light elegant goats' cheese from Charlie Westhead of Neal's Yard Creamery, very slightly overwhelmed by an incredibly lush Pinot Noir from the Marlborough region of New Zealand. Again a slightly lighter Pinot might have worked better.***

Stichelton and Maury 1928
An interesting variation on the Stilton and Port combo. Stichelton is an unpasteurised cows cheese made in the Stilton style by Joe Schneider at Collingthwaite Farm (all Stilton is pasteurised these days) and in my view one of the great British cheeses. I thought the Maury, a vin doux naturel from the south of France, didn't quite stand up to it as well as a port would have done (it was only 17%ABV compared to 20%) but it was a lovely wine. ****

Tunworth and Les Hautes Vallées Grenache Syrah Vin de Pays d'Oc 2006
The only pairing that didn't work for me. Tunworth is a rich Camembert-style cheese and this one had been well-matured which made it a tough customer for the accompanying robust southern French red (a blend of old vine Grenache and Syrah). It was better with oatcakes but I still prefer cider or a strong apple aperitif like Kingston Black with this type of cheese. *

I'll be running 3 cheese and wine masterclasses at the Bristol Wine and Food Fair which takes place from July 10th-12th. For more information about cheese and wine matching visit my website matchingfoodandwine.com

If it's Provence, it must be goats' cheese!

I've just come back from a trip to Provence and was surprised to find that almost all the local cheeses on offer were goats' cheese. Down the other end of the South of France round the Pyrenees it's sheeps' cheese that rules.

I didn't have time to ask the reason for this and haven't been able to find it on the web but it's true they go exceptionally well with the region's light, summery cuisine and their delicate wines, the vast majority of which are rosé.

The best-known Provencal cheese is Banon which is wrapped in vine-leaves but most of the cheeses we sampled (see above, served with honey) were unknown to me. They also serve similar cheeses at breakfast time (below) which work really well with local fruits such as apricots, peaches and figs - in a similar way to a fromage frais. A nice idea for summer eating.

Greek-style potato, courgette and feta bake

I bought a kilo of courgettes at the weekend and, thinking of different ways to use them, remembered this easy Greek-style bake I invented a couple of years ago. I only had salad potatoes (Anyas) whereas I'd normally use a bigger waxy potato like a Desirée but they worked perfectly well.

Serves 3/4
4 medium sized potatoes (about 600g), peeled
Half a bunch of spring onions (about 4) or 1 medium onion, peeled and finely sliced
2 medium to large courgettes (salted if large*)
200g feta cheese
4 sprigs of mint
2 tbsp olive oil
300ml vegetable stock made with 1 rounded tsp vegetable bouillon powder or 1/2 a vegetable stock cube
Freshly ground black pepper

Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/Gas 5. Trim the roots and the top half of the green leaves off the spring onions. Cut them lengthways into quarters then across into three. Halve and finely slice the potatoes. Cut the ends off each courgette and slice the rest finely. Pull the leaves off the mint and chop roughly. Pour 1 tbsp of olive oil into a large baking dish and smear it round the base and sides of the dish. Put a layer of potatoes over the bottom of the dish (about one third of the sliced potato) top with half the onions, half the sliced courgettes and half the feta, evenly crumbled over the courgettes. Scatter over half the mint and season with freshly ground black pepper. Repeat with another layer of potato, onion, courgette, feta and mint then finish with a layer of potato. Pour the stock over the vegetables then trickle the remaining olive oil over the top of the dish. Bake for an hour to an hour and a quarter or until the potatoes are completely tender (you should be able to stick a knife through them easily) and the top is brown and crispy. (About half way through the cooking time tilt the pan and spoon a little of the juices over the potatoes.) Nice on its own but even better with a tomato salad.

* If the courgettes are rather large and threaten to be watery I'd salt them lightly and leave them to drain half an hour. Rinse and pat them dry before using them.

My new cheese book

I've just been reading through the proofs of my new cheese book which comes out this October. It's called - rather intimidatingly - Fiona Beckett's Cheese Course and it looks amazing.

It's a standing joke in our family that whenever someone picks up one of my books they say "What beautiful photos!" Of course, that's the worst thing you can say to a writer - a bit like saying to a photographer "Great captions!" The author is the person who comes up with the whole structure of the book, painstakingly researches it and creates the recipes and yet it's the photographer and the art director who ultimately bring it to life.

I can't feel resentful though. Steve Painter of Ryland Peters & Small, who I've worked with on several of my books, is a genius and says himself it's his best book yet!

What is it all about? Well, it's a bit different from most cheese books on the market in that it's not an encyclopaedia of the worlds' cheeses, more a guide on how to enjoy and serve cheese to best effect. It's got some genuinely new ideas for entertaining with cheese (the cheese and wine party re-invented), lots of cheese and drink pairings (not just wine) and some really good new recipes (though I immodestly say so myself) including a terrific macaroni cheese.

The publishing timetable for full-colour books is weird. I finished it way back last autumn and I now won't see it again till September. It's almost like looking at it with new eyes, as if it's been written by someone else. Finishing a book is always a bit of an anti-climax. I always inclined to feel it didn't quite live up to the ideas I was carrying about in my head. Seeing it again makes me feel that actually it's pretty good. I hope you agree when you see it!

Swedish cheese

I don't know if you've noticed but Nordic is becoming the new Mediterranean. Chefs like Trina Hahnemann and Rene Redzepi, whose restaurant Noma was voted the third best in the world in the recent 50 best restaurants awards, have hit the international foodie radar. Nordic shops and food companies like Scandinavian Kitchen and Malmo Nordic Dining are springing up in London. So it was only a matter of time before the spotlight fell on Scandinavian cheese.

I tried four Swedish cheeses at the Real Food Festival in London yesterday, all of which are very much better than anything I've tasted before. Two - Herrgard and Präst reminded me of a medium and strong cheddar respectively (apparently there are whisky and vodka washed versions of the latter, according to Wikipedia)

I preferred Svecia which had a lovely crystalline texture and Grevé, a Swedish version of Emmental - with holes but more tangy and less waxy. I'm not sure where you could find them in London - possibly Scandinavian Kitchen - but it's worth asking more established cheese suppliers like Paxton and Whitfield or Selfridges for them as they'll probably stock them if they think there's a demand.