The Best of Autumn Round Up

    When it comes to Fall there few cheeses nearer and dearer to my heart than the following offerings.  Their origins rambling from Italy to Belgium to the U.S.A., you can't take a wrong turn with any of them. Even a meaty, porky Creminelli salami makes it into the mix.  Enjoy Autumn while it lasts.  Soon our golden days of falling leaves and hot apple cider will be replaced with wintry blasts of sleet.  

Creamy, sticky cow's milk Lou Bergier from northern Italy.

Fruity, punchy-piquant Valdeon blue from Spain. 
(A personal favorite)

Porky and silky this basic Casalingo Salami from Creminelli shines on every antipasti board.

Cow's milk Taleggio is pudgy and meaty and all good.  (Also, a close cousin of Lou Bergier.)

The lone American on this list.  Pleasant Ridge Reserve takes inspiration from the high alpine cheeses of Switzerland.

TB&W + Real Food & Health Magazine!

    So I've largely been keeping this bit of news under my hat, as they say.  This Autumn I was contacted by the editor, Heather Lionell, of Real Food and Health magazine to write a pair of articles for their November/December issue.  It was all rather last minute and a bit of a whirlwind so I gave the magazine two of my favorite TB&W posts to publish.  Within the pages of Real Food and Health you can find my thoughts on that most perfect Italian cheese, Taleggio and a favorite recipe for Baked Apple with Blue Cheese.  So head on over to RFH on facebook or, better yet, pick up a subscription on their website.  I promise every issue is packed with great writing and awesome recipes.  Make it an early Christmas gift for yourself.

This Cheese Doesn't Suck: Pave du Nord

    Pave du Nord is a little known cheese from the north of France.  Translating literally to "Paving Stone of the North", Pave du Nord is formally a working man's cheese.  The texture of this raw cow's milk cheese is most commonly hard, crisp, and flaky.  Quite like the famous aged Goudas of Holland or its fellow countryman, Mimolette.  In fact the most common comparison made to the characteristics of Pave du Nord is to Mimolette.  

    It's firm texture playing up flavors of dry earthy cave, minerals, and brown butter.  However my most recent encounter with Pave du Nord completely rocked everything I know about the cheese.  See, I've only every encountered it in all of it's uber aged glory (see above descriptions).  

    This time when we broke into our first loaf of the year, eyes glistening in anticipation, cheese knives poised and all that, we were shocked (shocked I tell you!) to find a supple, yielding, springy cheese.  What kind of chicanery was this? It was clearly Pave du Nord, alright.  But, well, a rather young loaf it seemed.  Never the less we dug in and all eye brows shot right past our hairlines.  

    "Baby" Pave du Nord was seriously excellent!  That supple paste went straight to cream under the tooth.  New bright, light butter flavors shone through right away and were quickly balanced out by that familiar mineral punch.  Also new were the vegetal green pepper and dry legume notes that came wafting in with the rest.  To wrap up the decidedly complex cheese was a delightful astringency that seemed to clear away any heaviness of flavor that lingered behind.  If you ever get your hands on young Pave du Nord pair it up with a good Sauvignon Blanc or a well balanced Petite Syrah.  Dang.

This Cheese Doesn't Suck: Pecorino Romano

Pecorino Romano is certainly the iconic hard grating cheese of Southern Italy.  Also know singularly as "Romano", this salty (Almost too much. But I really like it), kick-in-the-face tangy, sheep's milk cheese is widely known outside of its native region.  Sadly it seems most of what we are served as "Romano" here in the states is in fact not the real stuff.  In order to be true Pecorino Romano it must be made, get this, in the province of Rome.  Crazy right?  

Oddly enough you won't find this cheese much north of Rome where Parmigiano Reggiano rules the culinary world.  This relatively sharp divide in cheese preference really illustrates the cultural and habitual differences that exist in Italy.  

For a rather small-ish country we get the misconception that Italy is a single united culture.  The wild, sheepy,vegetal, peppery, dry crumble of Pecorino Romano, versus the refined crystaline, nutty, melted butter flavors of Parmigiano, subtly illustrate the complexity of culture and cheese making in Italy.  Although Pecorino Romano is used primarily state-side as a grating cheese, don't forget that it is a worthy table cheese on its own. Look for it in your local cheese shop as a beautiful pile of bone-white cheese or as a rustic 16lb cylinder with flaky black paint.  Its extreme salt and olive oil textures make it a delight to explore chunk by chunk. Be sure to pair it with a big, sumptuous, leggy red wine. 

 

Mashed Sweet Potato with Taleggio + Cinnamon

        I promise that this time I actually used a recipe for the dish I made.  And by recipe I mean said recipe was made up by my brain whilst staring at a pudgy slab of Italian Taleggio cheese, eyes glassy with desire, and thinking "yeah, those flavors would be so awesome together."  Completely neglecting the fact that it's likely a flavor combo I've never even encountered.  Yet I forge ahead.  

    Swan diving into undetermined amounts of salt and spice.  Baking, whisking, simmering, broiling my way to something that I hope will be edible.  

    No. 

    Not just edible.  

    I want whatever it is to be that mouthful that makes the eater go blind with temporary joy.  The type of dish that makes the recipient stand up and shout "This! This thing right here!"  Then followed by the silence so peculiar to a meal being thoroughly devoured.

    Right.  

    So I'm not that close to being that good of a chef (or even a real chef at all).  What I can do is whip together a dish (usually cheese centric, natch.) and make it work.  Enough so that the lucky test subject holds out a plate and mumbles, mouth crowded with Gorgonzola sauce and pecans, "More, please."  

    This go around I was caught in a fit of having the right ingredients all at the same time.  It's November.  Which means in Denver it's cold-ish (sort of).  I wanted hot comfort food.  Sunshine and perfect fall temperatures be damned.  What came out of my kitchen was surprisingly fall-like, if a bit on the almost painfully orange side.  

    But, oh, that Italian Taleggio and the cinnamon blended with brown sugar, butter, and warmed cream into the oven roasted sweet potatoes! 

    I had the good insight to toast the cinnamon lightly on a dry, hot pan before putting it in the mix.  Playing up the savory side of cinnamon by really opening its flavor and lending it a gentle roasted quality.  

    The whole dish was balanced between that earthy-sweet of the potato, the egg-y meatiness of Taleggio, and the savory-sweet dance of cinnamon and light brown sugar.  It's a good thing I came up for air.

Mashed Sweet Potato with Taleggio + Cinnamon

 serves 2-4

2 large sweet potatoes

4 oz. Taleggio Cheese

3/4 cup heavy cream

2 Tbs salted butter

1 tsp cinnamon

1 Tbs packed light brown sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350F

(for you high altitude cooks I found 375F worked best)

Wash and pat dry the potatoes.  

With a fork poke a few holes in the skin of each.

Roast in a pan or cookie sheet for approx. 1 hour or until the skin is crispy and insides are soft.

Unwrap the Taleggio.  Trimming away the rind and cutting into small pieces. Set aside a few pieces to top the dish with.

On the stove top heat a dry skillet on medium.  When hot add cinnamon and stir until fragrant about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Turn down heat to medium low.

Add butter, cream, and brown sugar.  Stir until melted and hot but not bubbling. 

Mash potatoes and Taleggio together in a large bowl with a fork or masher until coarse and lumpy.  Slowly, using a hand-mixer to blend, add the hot cream mixture until the potatoes are smooth and fluffy.

Whip in salt to taste and freshly cracked pepper if desired.

Top with remaining pieces of Taleggio

Serve* at once. 

*Preferably at your upcoming Thanksgiving feast!

 

This Cheese Doesn't Suck: Taleggio

    Taleggio is certainly one of autumn's most perfect cheeses.  Perhaps because it is made during the fall season that makes it so.  Contrary to what most people think about cheese making it is not all done during the peak of the growing season.  Sure there's the ideal lush alpine hillside in high summer with happy fat cows grazing on happy fat grasses.  While this certainly does happen it is not the norm for all cheese making.  

    Taleggio is unique in that it is made autumn and winter when the cows are stracche, or "tired".  Meaning that the summer grazing is over and the milk produced has gained more acidity than it had in the high season.  But enough with the science blah blah.  

    This cheese is made of poor first impressions.  Aged for about 40 days and washed weekly with a seawater sponge it gains some, ahem, interesting characteristics.  It develops a strong odorous wiff of feet, brine, molding hay, and dirty animal.  (I know this is hard, but stay with me here.) 

    Thankfully that is just the rind.  What lies beneath the offensive outside is a creamy wonderland of cheese.  Soft, supple, mildly sticky texture that all but becomes a fondue-like texture under the tooth.  Its flavors bursting with clarified butter, roasted almond, egg, over ripe fruit, and its characteristic meatiness.  This is a most magical of cheeses.  

    Be even more daring and melt it open faced on slices of baguette for grilled cheese bliss.

Baked Apple with St. Agour Blue Cheese

 

    Apples.  Honeycrisp, Tango, Gala, Granny Smith, Jonagold.  No matter its name or character apples are the official fruit of Autumn.  The best type having crispy flesh that turns velvety under the tooth, with honeyed sweetness balanced out with a tart snap.   While possibly the most perfect fruit on its own there is nothing that a little cheese can't improve.  

    Let me be the first to tell you that this improvement makes your average solo apple taste like that french fry you found in your backseat last week.  I'll explain.  This Jonagold apple was cored and baked with a fluffy mixture of softened butter, light brown sugar, and...wait for it...triple creme St. Agour blue cheese.  Oh. Yeah. 

    The salty, lactic, yet gentle acidity of the cheese perfectly complements the heady sweetness of the apple.  Blending seamlessly with the toasted, buttery caramel of the brown sugar and butter.  

    As I write this I have slowly been working my way through this a fore mentioned baked fruit (yes, it's my breakfast. don't hate.).  The sheer, almost physically palpable, decadence of it has left me slowly working my way to the bottom of the bowl.  Though once past the spoonable, just barely crisp apple, lies the juices left over from baking.  A caramelized, buttered pool of brown sugar, salt, and cream.  

    Now this is the way to welcome the first day of Autumn.

Baked Apple w/Blue Cheese

serves 1

1 washed and cored baking apple w/skin on

1 Tbs salted butter, softened

2 Tbs light brown sugar, packed

1 Tbs blue cheese, softened and packed

1/2 cup water

Cinnamon for dusting

Preheat oven to 350 F

Blend butter, sugar, and cheese with a spatula in a small bowl until well blend but still lumpy

Pack the mixture lightly into the cavity of the apple

The mixture should mound slightly over the top of the apple

Place into a baking dish and cover with apple lightly with tin foil

add the water to the baking dish

Bake for approx. 20 minutes

Remove tinfoil and add water if needed

Baste often with its own juices

Bake 20 more minutes or until tender under a fork

Carefully (molten sugar burns like napalm) move the apple to a ramekin or bowl 

Spoon over the juices from bottom of the baking dish

Sprinkle with cinnamon and any left over brown sugar

Spoon it into your face and enjoy!

Casalingo Salami

    So it seems I haven't made enough time for that other area of specialty foods dear to my heart.  Charcuterie (or Salami).  Now Charcuterie is really the Luigi to cheese's Mario.  As Bourdain is to Ripert.  You understand.  They are meant to occupy the same culinary space.  As most cured meat also developed in tandem with a cheese.  In a time when finding creative ways to preserve food was of utmost importance.

Continued after the jump...

This Cheese Doesn't Suck: Pleasant Ridge Reserve

 

     Apparently the cheeses I'm most fascinated with this Autumn are all from Wisconsin.  Perhaps it's my minor snobbery about cheese that keeps me mystified when Wisconsin produces such amazing artisanal dairy.  Yet, there it is.  I have to say (and I know this is a big endorsement) that Pleasant Ridge Reserve is one of my favorite cheeses.

Continued after the jump...

This Cheese Doesn't Suck: Lou Bergier

I adore Lou Bergier this time of year.  Aged for 60 days it has still been made of good Summer/early Autumn milk.  The cows still have ample time to graze on lush Italian grass and late season flowers.  This cheese smacks of clarified butter, clean animal, and damp loam.

Continued after the jump --->

Mascarpone

    Mascarpone. Pronounced  [mahsk^_ar-po-nay]. Not [masker-pohn].  I swear I do a mental face-palm whenever I hear someone trying to be "cultured" and totally mangling the pronunciation.  I hold no punches for the ignorant.  This is a cheese to be respected.  Especially this particular mascarpone. 

    Yet it isn't made in Northern Italy, where the style originates, instead it is actually the product of that oft mocked dairy state, Wisconsin.  Not just a land of uncomfortably electric yellow commodity cheeses and the mysterious "string cheese" (whatever that is).  Wisconsin has in recent years begun to put out a fine offering of artisanal dairy products that are quite in line with the artisan food movement sweeping the continent.  Crave Brothers is no exception. 

Continued after the jump...

Sneak Peek #3

I have some lovely autumnal offerings in the works for you. 

Some unedited footage for your satisfaction.