A Very Cheesy Valentine!
Whether you're spending your Valentine's Day with your love, with your pod or with your friends over zoom - I am here to help you pick one, two or why not all three, ways to share your love of cheese with your loved ones!
Here are two great kinds of cheese and three ways to enjoy them!
A fun or rare pick like Sappy Ewe
Nettle Meadow takes sheep and cow's milk cheese curds (the curds of milk that's been firmed to a thick-custard texture) and drizzles them with maple syrup from Adirondack mountains. Then they fill the curds into crottin-style molds to age. The cheese has a brie-like, bloomy rind that before shipping out, they dust with ash from local black pine trees. It's a New York cheese all the way.
The result is a rich, small sliceable cheese that tastes like brown butter, fresh hazelnuts, and maple ham that knocks the idea out of the water that cheese is always better left alone. Though the list of ingredients might give the impression of sweetness, Sappy Ewe is mellow, subtle, and fit for a cheese plate before or after dinner.
Wine: Before dinner, pair with a yeasty Champagne or rich Viognier. After, pair with something tawny, spicy, and sweet like a sweet sherry or vin santo
After dinner? Amazing with chocolate. Tazo's stone ground vanilla-bean chocolate offered a crunchy bite to the silky cheese.
Triple Creme, two ways
A triple creme is a cheese whose butterfat content is from 60-75%. Never fear, this is the percentage of fat in dry matter, meaning that because triples are so young and full of whey, which the FDA doesn't measure, the butterfat is actually lower than it sounds. One of my favorite triple creme below. Here's how you can spin it, sweet or spicy! 😈
Brillant Savarin with Chocolate
People rave about how much they love wine & chocolate together. Me? I prefer my chocolate with butterfat. Think chocolate cheesecake, but better. The only rules are 1. play around with contrasts (mix flavors and textures) and 2. that you must talk about what happens in cheese and chocolate club.
Mt. Tam with Spicy Tomato Jam
If you want to take your creamy experience to another level, contrast in texture, or flavor. Pairing your triple with something sour or spicy highlights the cheese’s sweet, creamy notes, and the high butterfat in the triple easily stands up to tart and piquant flavors, making for a very fun pairing. I paired mine here with Friends in Cheese’s Tart & Spicy Tomato Jelly.
Have a healthy and safe Valentine's Day!
XO,
Kirstin