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.

An Education in Cheese.

    "How did you learn so much about cheese?"  I get asked this question quite regularly by customers (and occasionally by friends who have somehow managed to escape my long winded hyperbole).  Inevitably I forget  myself and start getting dewy eyed over a piece of Quadrello di Bufala in front of a patient customer.  I'll start talking about the farm in Lombardy it came from and the delicate pudgy paste underneath the mottled crusty rind...and they'll look at me in wonder like I'm perhaps a bit cracked.  Yet that a fore mentioned question keeps popping up. Natch.

    Hence I think it's time that I address it a bit more fully.  It's a rather long saga spanning the last 5 1/2 years (i promise to be concise-ish).  Even including what I call my "Gap Year" where I worked for a thriving dance studio as the Office Girl.  During that time I was still involved with cheese.  Really it was that year where I truly came to understand my deep love/obsession for The Curd.  Separation makes the heart grow fonder...or something like that (it's not like i'm going to stand underneath a balcony pining for a chunk of farmhouse Cheddar...or anything). Hopefully you will be able to use some of what I did to learn about cheese to kick-start your own education. 

    My education in cheese truly began on the job with the first Cheesemonger I really trained under.  I was very fortunate to have such a great teacher for my blossoming interest in cheese.  She, too, was obsessed with the stuff and knew gobs of esoteric trivia about every piece of cheese in our cases.  Listening to her and others who knew quite a bit about cheese was my first step in learning.  For about the first 6 months I would just parrot back what I had picked up.  That is until I was able to eat, read about, and form my own opinions.

Murray's Cheese Handbook & 3 mo. raw milk Manchego

    Which leads me to my next points.  Reading.  Murray's Cheese Handbook and The Cheese Primer by Steven Jenkins are two of the best resources on the subject.  I absolutely am that nerd who reads about cheese in her free time.  It has really helped expand what I know about my profession.  From the proper care and keeping of every conceivable style of cheese to what molds are in those smelly washed rinds.  Through reading I get to know the opinions of  other, more accomplished (i.e. published authors), Cheesemongers out there.  Reading their opinions helps me gain perspective.  It can educate me on aspects of individual cheeses that I hadn't even contemplated yet.

    However, my favorite part of learning about cheese has, hands down, been consuming huge quantities of the stuff.  So you want to learn about cheese?  Eat.  Eat lots.  Eat as many different kinds as you can get your hands on.  Then write about what you ate and everything you experienced in eating it.  What did you taste?  How did it feel on your tongue? Against the roof of your mouth? What did you smell?  What was the texture in hand?  What did it look like when you cut into it?  On and on.  You get the idea.  It doesn't have to be fancy writing or in "foodie speak."  This last lesson has been more important to me than either teachers or reading.  It allows for the free flowing of my own personal biases for or against any particular cheese.  And there's nothing* I love more than giving my unfiltered opinions about The Curd.

*okay okay so I love prairie dogs and my Hubs-to-be more...but just barely...

Christmas Eating is Serious Business.

I promise there were no reindeer sweaters in the making of this blog entry.  Seriously.  I don't think the Christmas Eve guests would have stood for it.  Instead I chose to impress them with a selection of awesome food rather than a polyester Santa hat.  Judging by the silence (and occasional bickering over choice bits) after I brought the cheese board out I believe my Xmas lay out was a delicious hit.
Being that I had been working non-stop for two weeks at my day job Cheesemongering I decided cooking for the holiday was right out.  I wanted to be predictable.  Because my predictable is other peoples holy-crap-this-is-the-best-thing-I've-ever-put-in-my-face.  Yeah, it's like that.
I would like to say what I fed my friends last Saturday was the culmination of many hours of contemplation and planning.  It wasn't.  I wrote it out on the back of a receipt while cramming half of a chicken salad sandwich into my gob (i was hungry. don't judge.)  Still, I'm fairly smug (obviously) about the amazingness I call my Christmas Cheese Board 2011.  Sure, this trio and respective tasty bits could have been put together by anyone (not to mention given a more creative name).  But I am here to take the credit.

Cheese Clockwise from Top Right: Taleggio, Pierre Robert Brie, Stilton Blue. Meat: Soppressata (far), Prosciutto di Parma

 This plate consisted of three rather different cheeses: Taleggio, Pierre Robert Brie, and Stilton Farmhouse Blue.  If there is such thing as "sexy" cheese I feel like Taleggio is the bar by which other cheeses are measured.  It is an Italian cows milk washed rind cheese with a mottled orange crust that has a pervasive salt and earth aroma (like a 70's porn star. see, sex-ay.) Its chewy insides bulge with a romp of toasted hay, yeast, and more than a touch of beefiness.
The Taleggio was set as the anchor of my plate.  The other cheeses were chosen as compliments for the anchor, if you will.  Their bright acidity was used to combat the fatty palate-stomping abilities of the Taleggio.  Stilton Blue, hailing from the English county of Derbyshire, has a high singing salty acidity tempered by fruit and grassy notes from its long days in the aging caves.  The Pierre Robert, a fabulously fluffy wheel from Seine-et-Marne, also kept the acidity high but with a more refined texture close to that of mousse echoing with earth and lactose.  While both cheeses were little shining stars on their own, each played fabulously in the supporting role.
To keep my guests stomachs happy and to help the cheese shine even more I chose a few meats, nuts and a good crispbread as companion.  The Framani Sopresatta and Proscuitto di Parma made the classic salty-&-sweet paring with any of the cheeses.  The Marcona almonds also played a similar role but added a delightfully surprising varience in texture.  My favorite go-to cracker of all time, 34 degree Crispbread Black Pepper, made a stand-by appearance.  I admit, more than once I just had a cracker by its self.  I really could down (and have) a whole box of those peppery delights.  (The Quicos (i.e. Fancy Corn Nuts), well, those were just there because they're tasty.  They got to sit by everyone else because I felt bad for them.) So go forth and use Christmas Cheese Board 2011 outright or to inspire your own spread for the New Year Holiday.  Here a little bubbly, too, would not be found amiss.

My other favorite part: the kickin' nutcracker knives from Ian's Mom

I have to share this. Knitted for me by my Uncle. More on this amazing gift here.