Smokin'

I love smoked cheese and I have lots of selection here at C'est Cheese Please!  Of course there are the usual suspects - Applewood Smoked Cheddar from England and also Applewood Smoked Cheddar from Scotland but I also carry some fabulous cheese that I have custom smoked for C'est Cheese Please!  These include Gouda and Spiced Gouda, Ontario cheddar and the Red Hot Chili Pepper Cheddar as well as a low fat Mozzerella.  One of my person favs is the Smoked Spiced Gouda.  The gouda is spiced with cumin and that combined with the smokiness is in one word, yummy!  I really enjoy this melted on the fresh asparagus that is just hitting the local markets now.  I add some slices of toasted Asiago Pepper Bread ($4.99 a loaf) that I stock in the freezer along with my favorite red wine, Ripasso as my "Spring Has Sprung!" treat.

Try the smoked Red Hot Chili Pepper Cheddar melted on your nachos and the C'est Cheese Please Custom Smoked Cheddar is amazing on a bowl of chili.
I also stock a smoked blue cheese, Blue Haze.  This is a Québec blue cheese from the Abbaye Saint-Benoit-du-Lac (this is a link to a previous blog that I did on the cheeses made by the monks of the Abbaye) which is then smoked in Ontario using a blend of Ontario hardwood chips.  Burnt carmel notes on the outside contrasting with the creamy, piquant interior - great on your next hamburger or steak!

For something a little different, here is my recipe for Cheddar Biscuits - you could easily substitute the cheddar for Applewood Smoked Cheddar or the Smoked Red Hot Chili Pepper Cheddar.

Cheddar Biscuits

2 cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 tablespoon sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup shortening (cold)

3/4 cup shredded Cheddar Cheese

1 egg

2/3 cup of milk

In large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar and salt.  Cut in the shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.  Stir in the cheese.  In small bowl, beat together the egg and milk.  Add to the flour mixture mixing lightly until the mixture just comes together into a soft ball.  Turn out the dough onto a floured surface and knead gently 20 times.  Roll out the dough to a thickness of 1/2 an inch.  Cut with a floured round cutter approximately 2 inches in diameter.  Bake in a preheated 450 degree oven 8-10 minutes.  Will make approximately 2 1/2 dozen.

Bon Appétit!

Like Mother, Like Daughter

Well, I have a treat today!  My daughter, Ainsley has asked to do a guest blog and I am so pleased to introduce her to you.  So without further adieu, take it away Ainsley!

After another beautiful weekend in the city, biking, picnics, friends, wine and of course a fair share of cheese, I am sad to see it go, although it is already Monday evening.  I am lucky to have a mother that owns such a beautiful little cheese shop, and lucky that I live relatively close that I am able to get down often to visit. I was down in Galt at C’est Cheese Please! a few weekends ago and walked away with some lovely Mozzarella and some fresh Parmesan. However, since being down that way I haven’t found a moment to use it. Thus, until tonight, while slowly slipping back into the memories from the weekend. I was determined to take a moment for myself tonight, an action that is rare, as with most others I can only imagine. I had decided while feverishly working away today that I would come home, relax, read, cook and go for a long walk, and I am happy to say that is exactly what I did, mission complete. So back to what I cooked, I have been craving pizza ever since stumbling upon a small pizza place in the East side of Toronto, and even though I cannot cook pizza exactly like that place (no stone oven in this small apartment) I can sure try. I picked up a thin crust (yes store bought unfortunately, I mean it is a Monday evening…) some lovely pesto sauce, some crème fraiche, and some wild mushrooms. I mixed together the pesto and crème fraiche to create a lovely creamy pesto to use as the sauce then sprinkled the mushrooms on after I first sautéed them in some sesame oil (also from C’est Cheese Please), and finally being very forgiving in the layers of the fresh mozzarella and parmesan. Such a simple dish yet I feel like I have achieved so much. A lovely evening at home with me, myself and I, and well The Bachelorette of course.

 

            Sometimes taking a night for yourself, evening though the city is still running around me outside, gives me a sense of calmness and content.

Eat Well.

Et Bon Appétit!



Does Anyone Know How To Pronounce This??

Happy New Year!  I will make a few predictions:  The sun will rise despite economic difficulties.  The grass will grow regardless of global warming.  And cows, goats and sheep will produce milk that will be made into a plethora of cheeses many of which will find their way into "C'est Cheese Please!" this year.

Take this one for example, Millefoglie a la Marzamino, or like I say "Drunken Cow".  This beautiful raw cow's milk cheese comes from the alpine area north of Venice, Italy from the Latteria Perenzin who have been cheese makers for 4 generations.  Millefoglie is the Italian word for the French pastry, Mille-feuille which in English means "a thousand sheets".  During production, this cheese goes through a special treatment designed to produce a paste that has flaky stratification's.  The cheese is allowed to age for 6 months.  After the first aging, the cheese maker then inserts long needles into the cheese (this is called "needling" and is commonly done to blue cheese prior to the introduction of "penicillium roqueforti", the culture which then creates the traditional blue veining). The cheese goes through a second aging, this time in a regional red wine, Marzamino di Refrontolo for 10 days.  The stratification process allows the wine to be infused between the layers of cheese.

This cheese is not just another pretty face, it is fabulous with a piquant flavour melded with the sweetness of the wine.  It is sure to be a hit on your cheeseboard and excellent with an Italian red!

Millefoglie al Marzamino (Drunken Cow) is in stock at C'est Cheese Please! 

Buon Appetito!

Gooey Delights

As we head into the Christmas season, thoughts turn to warm fires and comfort food and what could be more comforting than to spend the evening enjoying the Swiss tradition of Raclette or Cheese Fondue?  Our imagination conjures up pictures of snowy days on the ski hill as we carve the perfect course down the slope, the crowd cheers, cowbells ring as we raise our hands in the victory air-punch....OK, so I face-planted!

The history of Raclette goes back 700 years to the Swiss cowboys in the southwestern part of Switzerland best known for the Matterhorn.  These were the young men who lead the herds high up into the summer pastures of the Alps.  They would take basic provisions with them and of course one of those things would be a wheel of cheese.  This would be one of the semi-firm wash-rind cheeses that the Europeans are so well-known for.  In the evenings, they would face the wheel in front of the fire until the top layer became soft and then "racler" which is the French verb for "to scrape" the gooey cheese onto a piece of bread or new potatoes and enjoy this with onions and pickles.  To this day, this is the traditional way of enjoying Raclette.

Today, Raclette has become a meal that also includes a variety of charcuterie - cured meats such as sausage and prosciutto, seafood like shrimp, vegetables and of course, boiled new potatoes and a selection of pickled condiments.

Why not start a new tradition in your home this Christmas Eve by enjoying Raclette or Fondue?

Classic 3-Cheese Fondue

·         235 ml (1 cup) dry white wine

·         1 clove garlic, halved

·         200 g (7 oz) each of Gruyere, Emmental and sharp Cheddar

·         30 g (2 tablespoons) Sherry

·         15 g (1 tablespoon) cornstarch

·         Nutmeg, dry mustard and pepper to taste

Grate the cheeses, set aside.  Rub the inside of your fondue pot with the halved garlic and discard the rest of the clove.  Heat the wine without boiling and if desired, add a splash of lemon juice to the wine.  Add the cheese to the hot wine handful by handful, stirring until cheeses have melted.   Combine Sherry with cornstarch and add to melted cheese mixture.  Dry mustard and or nutmeg can be added to taste.  Serve the fondue with chunks of crusty bread and vegetable crudités for dipping.

Bon Appétit!



"What Is He Buzzing In My Ears?" Robert Browning 1812-1889

In early August, the American Cheese Society held its annual conference and awards program in Montréal.....I can hear all Canadians doing a collective double-take.   Did you really mean Montréal, CANADA or is there a Montréal in Wyoming for example?  Yes, I really meant our own Montréal.  Finally Canada has started to gain some recognition south of the border for a little more than great hockey players and an excellent economic system! 

But this was a bit of a strategic move for the American Dairy Industry. Canada is a bit, well let's tell it like it is, A LOT unfamiliar with cheeses that come from the States and like Canada, there has been a real upsurge in small, artisinal cheese makers who are doing some really interesting things. Take this one for example, Barely Buzzed from the Beehive Cheese Company in Utah.

This reads like a modern-day "Green Acres " for those who remember the 60's sit-com, except that it involves two brothers-in-law (Pat and Tim) who decided
to chuck the 9-to-5 (one was in real estate and the other a partner in a softwear company) for cheese making.  Launching their business in 2005, they discovered quite by happenstance that their cheddar (Promontory Cheddar, an Irish-style cheddar with a buttery sharpness made with the milk of a single-herd) when rubbed with a coffee/lavender concoction all of a sudden took on a whole new flavour life of its own.  I have sampled this cheese to a number of my customers asking for them to identify the flavour.  The response has been hickory, spices including nutmeg and allspice but no one has come up with the actual combination.  But the overall reaction has been "I'll take some of that!"

 

Barely Buzzed won first place in the Flavoured Cheese category at the ACS and is in stock at C'est Cheese Please! 

Just as a side note, Canadian cheese makers did exceptionally well at the ACS winning 73 medals, two of which were Best of Shows! 

Bon Appétit!

Alfred le Fermier

Sometimes things that we think are bad turn out to be good and I think that I have found one of those things.  The Departments of Health, both federal and provincial, would like nothing better than to outlaw raw milk cheeses.  So, in the 1990's when the federal government took a run at doing this, the Federation des Proucteurs de lait du Québec fought this ban on the grounds that Québec was a distinct region with a history of raw milk cheeses.  What has occurred is an increasing number of small farmstead frommageries have been engaged in producing cheeses - an estimated 70 artisanal factories with an output of over 500 varieties of cheese have emerged in the last 20 years!  The area of the Eastern Townships has become known as the Cheese Trail and in 2005, the sales of cheese amounted to an amazing $670 million!

So today, I would like to introduce you to yet another wonderful cheese-maker from La Belle Province,  La Station de Compton, a small producer of three cheeses including the above pictured, Alfred le Fermier named for the great grandfather who founded the family farm in Compton, Québec.  That is Alfred pressed onto his namesake cheese - and what a cheese it is!  The farm is certified organic, the herd of cows are Holstein and they graze on meadows full of clover, alfalfa and asparagus trefoil.  This is a wash-rind cheese that is aged for six to eight months on spruce boards harvested from the wood on the farm.  What results is a beautiful wheel, orangy-red in colour on the outside, straw-coloured on the inside with small pinholes, buttery, nutty with a finish of sweet grassy notes.  Albert le Fermier needs nothing to enhance it other than a medium-bodied syrah or cabernet, not too heavily fruited to take away from the flavours of the cheese.  If you are a white fan, perhaps try it with a Riesling.

Albert le Fermier was a finalist in the 2006 Canadian Cheese Grand Prix as well as a finalist in the Caseus (Québec Fine Cheese Competition) in 2008.  Simon-Pierre Bolduc, owner of the farm also produces two other cheeses, Raclette de Compton and Comtomme.

The success of the Québec cheese boom has created a challenge for us - so many cheeses and a low per capital consumption.  In Europe, the average person consumes 20 kilos of cheese a year while in Canada, that is only 12 kilos and much of that is the mozzarella that is found on our pizzas!  So come on Canadians!  Come on in to C'est Cheese Please! and sample some of the wonderful delights awaiting your discerning palate!

Bon Appétit!

The Big Cheese

Next to mozzarella, cheddar is probably the most consumed cheese in North America.  It has been produced since at least the 12th century and is thought that the Romans introduced the recipe to Britain originally bringing it from the Cantel region of France.  Unfortunately the name has never been protected so now we refer to cheddar as being anything from wonderful, aged cheese to something that comes out of an aerosol can.  Like Brie and Camembert, technically speaking only cheddar that originates from Cheddar in Somerset, South West England is entitled to bear the name but let's try telling that to Kraft!

Cheddaring actually refers to a process of cheese making where the curds are cut and stacked in a specific manner at the bottom of the vat every 10-15 minutes for an hour and a half allowing the whey to drain producing a cheese that is firm with a distinctive texture.  Beyond this initial  step, the techniques used vary depending on the region and cheesemaker.  One of the natural elements that contributed to the production of cheddar as we know it, are the caves found in Cheddar, England which provided an environment for the aging of the cheese.  It is this specific environment which cheesemakers seek to replicate when aging cheddar.

So how do we know a "good" cheddar from a "great" cheddar?  First, the ingredients. Any cheese which has "milk solids" as an ingredient falls in the category of factory cheddar.  A great cheddar is 100% milk with the addition of rennet and cultures.    Second, orange or white?  Natural cheddar is creamy to pale white in colour.  Orange cheddar results with the addition of annatto which is a natural plant extract.  When aging cheddar, ANY additional ingredient will affect the way that the cheese ages which is why most aged cheddars are white.  Thirdly, the age of the cheese - a young cheddar is mild in flavour and with age develops a complexity and a sharpness of flavour.  One other point is that as cheese ages, the lactose breaks down with the microbial fermentation of the cheese.

Here at "C'est Cheese Please!" we carry 5 and 7 year old cheddar from St. Albert.  Recently, the 5 year old cheddar won a silver medal at the 2011 Canadian Cheese Grand Prix.  Both are examples of great cheddars - complex and sharp but maintaining a creamy, clean finish but really in the end, you need to come into "C'est Cheese Please!" and taste for yourself a truly wonderful cheddar!

Bon Appétit!