food, reviews and of course coffee
Nope, not a typo…
A cheese show in Somerset is hoping to set the record for the world’s most expensive cheese sandwich.
The Frome Cheese Show claims to be the oldest in the country. And organisers hope its cheese sandwich, costing £110.59, is the world’s most expensive.
It was created by Bath-based chef Martin Blunos and is made with cheddar blended with white truffles and sprinkled with gold dust.
BBC News Magazine has a nice article on the International Cheese Awards.
There is cheese and then there is cheese. In terms of French cheese I have tried many different kinds. With Dutch cheese my main cheese if choice is Gouda. Though I have eaten Edam in the past I haven’t really touch it for years now. One Dutch cheese I do buy now and again is Leerdammer. This is a *new* cheese in that it has only been around since 1977 and in some ways is quite a modern style of cheese.
It has a nutty flavour with a hint of sweetness. Like Gouda it has a soft creamy texture but will slice easily. There is a mature version which I prefer but isn’t that easy to get hold of.
I use it in the main in sandwiches.
Not a fantastic cheese, nor one I would put in a cheeseboard however as a sandwich cheese it works well.
Since Christmas I have been trying a few new and different cheeses. One I have particularly liked was Ossau Iraty, a traditional ewes milk cheese from the Basque region of South-West France.
It’s a firm cheese with a sweet, fruity flavour.
Over Christmas I ate a fair bit of cheese and tried some new cheeses out. One I particularly enjoyed the Cenarth Organic Caerffili from Sainsbury.
It was a mild lemony cheese with a buttery and silky texture. It came in a (proper) wax layer and was delicious.
I was recently up in London and stayed at the Ambassadors Hotel in Bloomsbury. Staying with friends we had the Christmas dinner at the Number Twelve attached restaurant. I started off with the Chestnut Pasta and had the Ribeye steak for my mains.
For my desert I had the cheese.
Well don’t get me wrong it was a very nice cheese, but as that it? Three small (half) slices of Stilton.
Hmmm.
Considering how easy these are to make and taste so much better fresh I am surprised that people don’t make them more often.
Take some puff pastry.
Now here’s a question? Am I hypocritical for being surprised that people buy cheese straws but then go ahead and buy ready made puff pastry to make my own? Is that not just the kettle and the pot calling each other names?
Well yes I did use ready made puff pastry. I usually make straws after using the puff pastry for something else and there is some left over.
So I rolled it out, grated some parmesan onto it, folded it over, repeated twice more.
I then cut the cheesy pastry into strips about six inches long and half an inch wide.
These I then twist, hold each end and twist your hands in opposite directions to get a twisty cheese straw.
Brush with egg and scatter some more grated parmesan onto the top.
Bake in the oven for around eight to ten minutes.
Delicious.
Sometimes when I get a cheese I like it, and sometimes I don’t. I seem to blog more often about cheeses I don’t like though or cooking with cheese, must change that and start to blog about the cheeses I do like.
Well this is a cheese I think is okay, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to buy again.
I was at a farm shop and they had a nice looking cheese called Wife of Bath, it looked and sounded interesting and was sold on that. I should have asked to taste some first but I thought it looked really nice.
Well.
I got home and to be honest it was quite bland and lacked substance. It reminded me of Doux De Montagne and if you recall my views on that I said:
To be honest I didn’t think that much of it. The flavour was too mild for me, though I did like the texture. If you like Edam or Port Salut then you will probably enjoy this cheese, though expect the flavour to be quite mild in comparison.
With the Wife of Bath cheese, my views are almost the same.
This is a harder cheese but still lacks “oomph”. It might make an interesting addition to a cheeseboard, but otherwise nothing to go out and try and find.
An amusing look at the online ordering system at Domino’s pizza.
But what I’ve become obsessed with is that when you only want a particular topping on half of your pizza, they make you specify WHICH HALF. LEFT or RIGHT.
I had ordered from them a few times but never paid attention to see if they got the halves correct. I was curious to see if it really would arrive the way I ordered it.
Last night I performed a test.
Can you really order a pizza with NO cheese, NO sauce and NO topping?
This is a quick and easy salad or starter.
Take a mozzarella ball and cut into thin slices, arrange on a plate.
Add some sliced tomatoes, I actually used halved cherry tomatoes. You can either interleave the tomato with the mozzarella or place the tomato halves in the middle of the plate.
Scatter some small basil leaves across the cheese and tomato.
Dress with some white wine vinegar, some fine olive oil and freshly ground black pepper.
Serve.