| Impress Your Guests: Build a Better Cheese Spread |
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If you have plans of throwing a Holiday party this year, chances are that cheese will be a staple ingredient in your food spread. Cheese always makes perfect sense for a party food since it’s probably the only ingredient that you can call upon to single handedly fulfill the requirements of your entire event.
Since we’re asking cheese to handle some heavy lifting at this year’s Holiday party, why not make it stand out? Our advice is to broaden your cheese horizons this and impress your guests with something other than Cheddar, Swiss and Port Wine Cheese that show up on most holiday cheese spreads. As good as these old standbys might be, don’t you want to be looked upon as a creative host who really knows his or her food? Wouldn’t you like to make a culinary statement that says, “you’re my friends and family and you deserve something extraordinary, instead of just another homogenous mass of cow’s milk.” With this goal in mind, we have compiled a list of amazing cheeses that will not only create conversation and showcase your good taste, but they will leave your impressed guests asking, “where can I get that cheese?” With the help of local cheese expert, Chris Kazmac from Sickles Market in Little Silver, we have compiled a short list of unique cheeses from different countries and different production methods that we believe would impress even the most knowledgeable epicurean. This first cheese on our recommended list is a goat’s milk cheese from Spain called Monte Enebro. From your first glance at its mottled, bluish-gray rind, there is no doubt that you are about to have an intense experience, one that will introduce flavors no other goat cheese comes close to matching. The stark-white paste starts out deceivingly mild, then erupts with a spicy, tangy flavor that the dense, almost chewy texture allows you to savor.
A second cheese from Spain that we highly recommend is another goat’s milk cheese called Nevat. Like beloved Brie and Camembert, Nevat has a distinctive rind that will help you identify it. The molds ripen the cheese from the outside in, so a mature Nevat will be creamy, even squishy, under the rind and firmer toward the center. We’ve heard it described by cheese lovers as soft and sexy, with just a bit of contrasting chalkiness in the middle. The interior color is pale ivory with fully developed, long-lasting flavor and a gentle sweetness balanced with salt and tang. The next amazingly different cheese we would recommend comes from Italy and is called Torta Ambros. Made by one of the masters of Taleggio, Torta Ambros is a hard to find washed-rind, cow’s milk cheese of the highest quality and small production. Chris at Sickles is already cutting from one wheel of this wonderful cheese but assured us that there are two more beauties in the refrigerator. Just in time for the holidays! If you’re feeling patriotic, or just love American cheeses, we’ve got a great one for you called Constant Bliss. A true artisanal, American cheese, it’s made from cow’s milk and released the minute it's legal (60 days old). The taste and texture of Constant Bliss evolves as it ages, and therein lies its beauty. Typically, it has a silky texture and clean, milky flavor with hints of mushrooms. This is the type of cheese that is proving that American cheesemakers are catching up to their European counterparts. If you’re the type of person who insists on serving a “Swiss,” then here’s one for you: Swiss made Tete de Moine is a cow's milk cheese that translates into “monk’s head”. When sliced paper-thin, your guests will remark that it has a boastful, beefy and slightly salty flavor… much better, in our opinion, than the standard Swiss Cheese that usually finds its place on the Holiday cheese platter. |
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