Italian Ubriaco di Raboso The Drunken Cow Cheese

Ubriaco di Raboso is a wine soaked cow's milk cheese that is made only in the Treviso region of Italy. The English translation of ubriaco is drunk or drunken and this cheese can be thought of as the "Drunken Cow" cheese with an obvious nod to the Spanish "Drunken Goat" cheese. As legend has it the origins of this cheese go back to World War 1 when Italian farmers in the Piave River area hid their wheels of cheese in barrels of fermenting grape juice to prevent invading armies from stealing them. Today the Master Affineur Antoinio Carpenedo and his company La Casearia Carpenedo has brought the legend to reality with this masterful cheese.

Details: This is a semi-hard raw cow's milk cheese that is pressed but not cooked. It is aged for six months in Mr.Carpenedo's cellars and them immersed in Raboso grape must for several weeks. During the immersion period the cheese absorbs the grape must flavor, aroma and its deep ruby red color. The resulting cheese has a pale yellow interior paste with small holes and hints of red color at the inner surface of the rind. 

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Flavor:The flavor has hints of black berries and sour cherries and finishes with a pleasant mild peppery zing.
This is a wonderful table cheese that should be served with a meal as a cheese course. It also shines as an addition to salads, thinly sliced and added to a roasted vegetable sandwich or served with grapes or figs and a crusty bread. You should store this cheese in the lowest area of your refrigerator wrapped in waxed paper or aluminum foil.

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Wine Paring: Merlot, Cabernet, Fragola, Sauvignon or Verduzzo It is perfect with the bubbly Prosecco
 
For information on other La Casearia Brand cheeses go to :
http://www.lacasearia.com
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Roaring 40s Blue Cheese An Australian Masterpiece

Roaring 40s Blue is produced in Australia. Unlike typical French blue cheeses (Roquefort) made from sheep’s milk. This is made entirely from cow's milk which gives it a somewhat milder flavor. The King Island dairy herds that produce the milk for this cheese graze on verdant, dense pastures, supplementing their rich diet occasionally with a helping of kelp that is washed up after heavy storms. So legend has it that the name of this cheese comes from the "Roaring 40's" storms that often hit the coast.

This blue cheese is full flavored and has a beige inner paste that produces a buttery smooth, nutty flavor. The waxed inedible rind helps to promote a sweetness and creamy texture in this cheese and prevents the moldy taste that some other blue cheeses present. King Island dariy's Roaring 40's blue cheese is the current Champion Blue cheese AGDA 2010 and Gold Medal winner.

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This blue cheese is full flavored and has a yellow beige inner paste that produces a buttery smooth, nutty flavor and a dark blue wax outer rind. Allow Roaring Forties to fully come to room temperature and enjoy its creamy texture with a fresh baguette, red grapes, figs and walnut


Wine Paring: Australian sweet whites like Sauterne and big Australian reds

Gjetost An Interesting Norwegian Goat Cheese

Gjetost is a sweet brown Norwegian cheese made from pure goat's milk or a mixture of cow and goat milk. In most respects this is not really cheese, so a little background on how it is made will shed a little light on what we mean. Gjetost is made by slow cooking the milk until it is caramelized thus removing most of the water, the resulting "curd" is then pressed into block molds to remove any left over water, at this point it is ready for sale or to eat. It should be noted that this process has essentially created milk sugar and gives the "cheese" it's brown color, fudge-like texture and overt sweetness. Since there is no aging process the flavor of fresh goat's milk is still noticeable. The flavor as noted above is sweet (maybe too sweet for some) and can be considered an acquired taste. It has a mouth feel like fudge, hence the name "fudge cheese", with a caramel flavor but the goat tang still filters through. The aroma has been described as slightly fishy to barnyard to goaty but not offensive or overpowering.

When shopping for this Norwegian novelty look for the Ekte Gjetost if you want the pure goat milk style or the red box (sometimes labeled as Ski Queen ) for the mixed milk variety and can also be found in 9lb blocks which can be cut to order. Gjetost can be ordered online at Amazon.

You can serve this in the morning thinly sliced on bread or toast with coffee or with sweet fruits like grapes or pears as a snack. This is best cut thinly with a cheese plane not a knife.

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Wine Pairing: It would be hard to recommend any particular wine to go with this since it is a bit unique but it does appear to go well with beefy lagers or maybe a good Irish Stout.

Italian Provolone Cheese Sophisticated Simplicity

Italian Provolone bears little resemblance to the pitiful, tasteless factory made version we often see here in the United States. It is the most popular cheese in Italy and it is found in almost every home there. Provolone has DOP certification but is made in all the regions of Italy and comes in all shapes and sizes. Provolone is a firm cow's milk cheese that been rubbed with brine and allowed to air dry in controlled temperatures and humidity. The fresh cheese, aged about one month, has almost no flavor or aroma. However this cheese is transformed once it is allowed to age further. The Dolce version is aged about three months and has a mildly sharp flavor for this reason it is popular as an addition to deli sandwiches here in the United States. The ten to twelve month aged cheese Picante has a sharp and aggressive flavor and the sixteen to eighteen month version has a very sharp and also hot taste that can overpower many accompaniments. There is a rare three year old Provolone that appears in some specialty cheese shops. This aged version is hard and flinty and can be grated. It has a very hot flavor and really spices up pasta dishes.  Also, as it ages Provolone will get firmer and a bit oily. The outer rind is formed by the constant rubbing of the fresh cheese with oil and brine this procedure creates a natural edible rind that has a medium yellow hue and a light yellow interior paste that will become darker as the cheese ages.

Provolone is usually pretty hard to abuse but when buying it look for dryness, cracking or a rancid odor as these are all signs of a bad investment. Also ask your cheese seller how long the piece you are buying has been aged because this will give you an idea about it's flavor. Also ask to taste a small piece since there is no sense in purchasing a picante version if you do not like sharp cheeses. The brands to look for here in the United States are Auricchio, Il Giardino but our favorite imported one is Albiero. The Alberio Dairy consistently produces superior quality products that reflect the family's dedication to the art of cheese making.

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You can serve dolce Provolone as a sandwich cheese, with raw vegetables, olives and sweet peppers in an antipasto or as a topping for pizza. Aged versions can be served as a table cheese or grated over pasta, meat or seafood dishes

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Wine Pairing: Since the simplicity of this cheese is it's strong point look for unpretentious Italian red wines like Chianti Classico. For aged versions look for bold Italian reds.

For information on other Alberio Brand cheeses go to: http://www.albiero.it/albieroeng.html

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Huntsman A Uniquely English Cheese

Huntsman is a pasteurized cow's milk blue cheese made by the Long Clawson Dairy in England. It's name is trademarked but there a few imitators like Stilchester out there so always ask for the original. Huntsman is relatively new to the retail cheese world but it has acquired a large and devoted following. It is made by starting with a wheel of 36 month aged Double Gloucester and cutting out sections in the split wheel by hand. The cut out sections are then filled in by hand with 3 month aged Stilton blue cheese. This time consuming process yields a wonderful cheese that is quite unique. It presents a combination of the soft, assertive Stilton with the mild flavored, hard textured Double Gloucester. At first thought this combination really should not work, however one taste will quickly prove this line of thinking wrong.

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When shopping for Huntsman first look for the Long Clawson Dairy name, then make sure that the Stilton does not look gray or overly runny and that the Double Gloucester is not dry, cracked or moldy. You may find Huntsman in three or five layer versions, both are good but think of how you plan to serve them before making a purchase. The five layer version is a bit tall so it would work well for cheese plates and the three layer version works well for cooking.

Store Huntsman wrapped in waxed paper or tin foil and covered with plastic wrap and in a separated vegetable bin. This will prevent the strong Stilton aroma and it's mold from being transferred to other foods or cheeses.

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Huntsman is a great addition to a cheese board, it is also great melted over hamburgers, grilled steak and sliced into salads. It can be served by itself with fig paste and crusty bread as a midday snack.

Wine Pairing; Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc or sweet Ports it also pairs well with British Ales.

English Double Gloucester Cheese Revisiting A Old Friend

Double Gloucester is a mild cheddar-like English farmhouse cheese that has been produced since the 16th century. It is made from the morning and evening milkings then the whole milk and cream from these two milkings are poured and mixed together, rennet is then added to create the curd. The curd is lightly cooked, drained and then pressed in molds to remove any excess water and whey, the resulting cheeses are set to age for about six months. There are two versions of Double Gloucester, one is white and the other light orange, the orange color comes from the addition of annatto during the mixing stage. A hard natural rind is formed that can look unsightly but it is often covered by a cloth outer layer to help keep it dry. Farmhouse made Double Gloucester almost always comes cloth bound and is usually more expensive than the plain rind cheeses made by large dairies.This cheese is also used in the production of English Huntsman cheese.

 Tasting: The flavor of Double Gloucester depends on its age therefore the older it is the more flavor it will have. The inner paste is dense and hard but not overly dry. The outer rind, which is inedible, may have spots of mold on it but this is normal and should not be looked at as a cheese gone bad. It has a buttery rich taste with hints of citrus and onion, as it ages it with have a sharper flavor and a decidedly nutty finish. This cheese should be stored in a zip lock bag in the vegetable bin of the refrigerator, this way it should last about 2 - 3 weeks, any mold that might form on it can simply be scraped away.

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When buying Double Gloucester avoid any that look overly dry or cracked.

Serve Double Gloucester as a snack with fruit and crackers, try grating into salads or over baked potatoes and pasta, it also makes great grilled cheese sandwiches and paninis.

Wine Pairing: Try it with a good Rioja or Reisling, it also goes well with hearty beers and ales

Norwegian Jarlsberg Cheese

Jarlsberg is one the most popular cheeses that are imported into the United States. This Norwegian cheese, named for the county that it is produced in, was created in 1956 from and an old 1830 Swiss recipe. Jarlsberg cheese was introduced to the world in 1961 and has become one of Norway's biggest exports throughout the world.

Jarlsberg is made from partially skimmed pasteurized cow's milk that is coagulated with animal rennet. Specially formulated bacterial cultures are added to the curds which are then pressed into cheese molds, salted, allowed to age from 1 to 15 months and then coated with an inedible yellow paraffin coating. All of these procedures are done under strict laboratory conditions and regulations. Most of the Jarlsberg that reaches our shores is aged about 3 months and has a semi-firm, smooth yellow paste that has many large and small holes throughout. 

The flavor is slightly nutty and salty with a sweet buttery smooth mouth feel. The overall flavor profile is not overly complex or strong. There is another version that is called Jarlsberg "Reserve" and it is aged from 12 to 15 months, this will have a bigger flavor and aroma, you will most likely have to ask for it by it's "Reserve" name.
When shopping for this cheese, do not purchase it if it looks dry, cracked or has any mold on it. Always try to get a small sample to taste to make sure it's flavor agrees with you.

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This is a very nice cheese to use for grilled cheese sandwiches or thinly sliced on grilled meat sandwiches and hamburgers. As a snack cheese serve it with grapes or other semi-sweet fruits. Both the regular Jarlsberg and the Reserve can be purchased without the paraffin rind coating.

Wine Paring: Light spicy whites like Alsace Sylvanner or Treminer