celebrating Bastille Day...with a Swiss cheese???

Today is Bastille Day, so we incorporated some French elements (well, European at least) into our day.  I was really tired this morning, so tired in fact that I didn't feel like wasting time (or calories) on a latte, and instead opted for a single shot of espresso.  For dinner, we had egg sandwiches on French rolls, and for dessert, I made my first attempt at crepes (I've been dying to try out the rateau I bought at the Le Creuset outlet store on our vacation in Destin.  I will not discuss how excited I was to find this $3 dowel utensil in the store).  So what did any of this have to do with cheese?  Well, a few days ago, needing a new cheese to try, I purchased Emmentaler.  My cheese book suggested that it was a perfect cheese for a Croque Monsieur.  Lacking ingredients, we improvised with a pseudo-Croque Madame, scrambling eggs with spinach and melting shredded Emmentaler on top.  

Emmentaler is a cheese familiar to many.  It dates back to 1293, though it was not mentioned by name until almost 300 years later in 1542.  It's a Swiss cow's milk cheese, classified as a hard cheese, and aged anywhere between 4-18 months.  A single hoop of this cheese, which weighs 165-200 lbs, requires 265 gallons of milk.  The one I tried claimed to have been aged over 100 days.  The flavor was lovely, like Alpine meadows of warm grass and wildflowers, butter and a hint of nuttiness.  The texture was also very interesting.  At room temperature, it was soft and elastic, and then it melted beautifully for our sandwiches, becoming more stretchy without breaking down at all.  The cheese paired nicely with a glass of Riesling. 

fondue

For some crazy reason, I wanted to try the French-themed fondue featured at the Melting Pot before they took it off their menu. So the last Sunday in March, my husband and I set off to experience Fondue a la France. Several years ago, we had done their full four-course menu, and decided it was just way too much food.  This time, we were limiting it to cheese, salad, and dessert (a near-perfect meal in my opinion).

We ordered the featured fondue, which included Baby Brie (France), Fontina (Italy), Gruyere (Switzerland) and Raclette (France), all melted together with Nueske's bacon, onions, white truffle cream and chives.  It was very cheesy and flavorful, and every so often, I'd get a delicious little piece of the slightly more pungeant Brie that hadn't melted completely. They served it with several types of bread (white, wheat and rosemary I believe), raw veggies (broccoli, cauliflower and carrots) and green apple chunks for dipping.  We really enjoyed it, but I concluded that when it comes to cheese, if I'm trying to experience new cheeses and flavors, that fondue is not my preferred method. Don't get me wrong - melty cheese is not a bad thing, but several melted together makes it difficult to discern the unique characteristics of each.  

The Nicoise salad (haricots verts, tomatoes, hard boiled egg, Nicoise olives with shallot vinaigrette) was very pretty and provided an opportunity for me to try beets (verdict: not bad - at least these since they were very finely shredded). And finally the White Chocolate Creme Brulee (with caramelized sugar shards!) was delicious and happiness-inducing.

jambon et fromage

One of my favorite food memories from Paris is grabbing a quick lunch each day in between sites.  If we didn't have crepes, we'd stop at a little cart for a sandwich.  It was typically a single slice of ham and cheese on the most delicious crusty, chewy baguette.  The sandwich plus a Coca-Cola (yes, I know - incredibly American, but sometimes you just needed the sugar and caffeine to get through a full day of museums) made for a delightful lunch.  It was good, inexpensive, and typically included entertainment (people watching in the park).

Yesterday, my husband and I were walking through Trader Joe's to pick up some pasta and salad for lunch, but when I saw a basket of fresh baguettes, we changed plans and decided to recreate those Paris sandwiches.  We allowed a couple modifications to the Paris version and used Black Forest ham and sliced goat cheese.  The sliced goat cheese was hanging in the cheese section just like any other deli-sliced packaged sandwich cheese (cheddar, provolone, etc) but was a nice change.  It became more flavorful as it warmed to room temperature.  The sandwiches turned out really well, and with a side salad, a few chips and a glass of French rosé, we had a memorable lunch in our own kitchen.

have cheese, will travel

I had purchased a second Living Social deal to Corrieri's and had been planning to use it in March to sample some more new cheeses.  But a few days before it expired, I found out that I had to go to Louisville for work, and since Louisville is almost halfway, Brett and I decided to tack on an extended visit to the in-laws in Indiana, which meant I wasn't going to make it back before the voucher expired.  So, the night before we left town, the husband and I went to the shop to make some selections.  After sampling several types, we walked away with five wedges:  St. Andre, Ossau Iraty, Garroxta, Monte Enebro and Prima Donna.   The next day, the cheese came along with us in a cooler. We also packed several items to pair the cheese with - bread, apples, walnuts, dried cranberries, olives and honey.

St. Andre is a French soft-ripened cheese from the Normandy region and is produced from cow's milk.  If you think that the picture looks like butter, you'd be about right.  This triple cream cheese contains up to 70% butterfat!  It was creamy and incredibly rich, so much so that it almost required pairing with bread, walnuts or dried cranberries.  The texture in the center was similar to whipped butter, while the texture closer to the rind was silky smooth and heavier more like cream cheese.  Very decadent!


Ossau-Iraty is a hard sheep's milk cheese from the Aquitane region of France.  It is aged at least 3 months and is protected by the AOC (Appellation d'Origine Controllee).  This sharp cheese had a firm texture, and I thought it tasted like the warm grass or hay eaten by the sheep.  It had a pleasant animal smell.

Garroxta is a goat's milk cheese from Cataluña, Spain.  It's classified as a semi-soft cheese and is aged between 2 and 4 months.  Compared to many other cheeses, this artisan cheese is a relatively new, having first been produced in 1981.  Like most goat cheeses, it was tangy and bright white in color.  I enjoyed it not only alone but also with Spanish olives.  The rind was especially beautiful with it speckles in various shades of gray.

Monte Enebro is classified as a natural rind goat's milk cheese.  Made in Avila, Castilla-Leon, Spain, the curds are pressed into the shape of a mule's hoof..  The girl at Corrieri's explained that the mold covering the rind is the same kind that is injected into Roquefort cheese, but only covers the surface on Monte Enebro.  According to the World Cheese Book, it was the first modern Spanish artisan cheese to gain recognition internationally.  I found the appearance to be very unique.  I preferred the center, which was softer, creamier and milder than the part close to the rind, which definitely had a stronger, more blue flavor.  The flavor of the goat's milk, which I love, was easier for me to detect in the center, as the blue flavor near the rind was more dominant.  However, this was a nice blue cheese for me, since I tend to shy away from them.

Prima Donna is a hard Gouda-style cheese from the Netherlands.  Made from cow's milk, it's aged about a year (Corrieri's noted the one we had was aged 16 months).  This is significantly less than some Goudas, some of which are aged for several years.  There were small round holes scattered throughout.  It had a firm texture with a rich, strong flavor from start to finish that paired very well with apples.  While delicious alone, I imagine it would also be great on a sandwich.  It's a cheese that should seem familiar to Americans with a texture and sharpness similar to a medium cheddar, however it had a nuttiness similar to a Parmesan.

new cheese recipes

Since there is an abundance of cheese in our house at present, I decided to use up some cheese in a recipe. The cheese book was absolutely correct about Comté being good for gratins.  I made a spinach and potato gratin for dinner by using a generic au gratin recipe I found online and making my own improvements.  It turned out really well and tasted great!  The cheese melted easily and beautifully, with a seemingly perfect balance of creaminess and stretchiness, and resulted in this:

just out of the oven

served with crumbled bacon on top

 Thankfully, the Abbaye Ste Meré has also been consumed.  Brett used it up last week making grilled cheese sandwiches for his lunch.  He said the organo, butter and black pepper masked some of the smell (not that he had minded it the first time around).

Batting .500

I was recently introduced to the wonderful cheese section at Trader Joe's, so I purchased two new cheeses for February.  I chose two French cheeses - Comté and Abbaye Ste Mere.

Comté is a hard French cheese from the regions of Franche-Comté and Rhone-Alpes in the east of France.  It's a very old cheese, that has been around for over 800 years, and is currently protected by the AOC (Appellation d'Origine Controlee).  Approximately 120 gallons of cow's milk is required to make each 80 lb wheel, which is aged anywhere between 4 and 18 months.  This was a really nice cheese to enjoy alone, although it supposedly works well in quiches, gratins and other French cuisine.  We could almost taste the sunny, grassy meadows where the cows grazed.  I would classify it as a medium cheese, as it was neither distinctly mild nor sharp.

Abbaye Ste Mere is a semi-soft French cheese made at an abbey in the Normandy region of France. It's made from raw cow's milk.  Upon opening the packaging, I immediately noticed the smell.  It was quite off-putting.  I went ahead and sliced off a bit for myself and Brett, trying to convince myself it was the rind, and it would be fine if I just cut that off.  However, even after trimming off the rind, it still smelled like what we decided was moldy socks.  After much negotiating with myself (we paid good money for this cheese, perhaps it tastes better than it smells, I have to at least try it to have an opinion, etc), I took a bite.  I'm not going to lie - it was pretty unpleasant.  Unfortunately, as with many things, I can't get past the smell, so I won't be eating anymore of this cheese.

A cheese worthy of the Super Bowl

Brie with apples and cranberries

It tasted like an apple pie, only better!  The apples and cranberries were coated in butter, cinnamon and brown sugar, and then everything was wrapped in dough and baked to perfection.  Unfortunately, I don't have an "after" picture since we were at someone's house with several other people, and I wasn't about to subject them that, but it turned out really well!