Sandi and I just finished the day judging at the NZ Champions of Cheese awards at the Langham hotel in Auckland. We were both lucky enough to taste a variety of cheese styles in our categories. Although there was a range of quality as usual, there were some very nice cheeses. We continue to notice the absence of some cheese styles that are common overseas - and hope that kiwi cheese makers can be encouraged to continue to develop in this area and that the public will support them.
The final round of judging the gold medal winners to pick out the championship cheeses (for artisan and large commercial producers) showed some good New Zealand cheese makers. We are waiting until Tuesday night at the awards night to find out who won the Champion of Champions award!
Andrew & Sandi
Sunday, February 24, 2013
#29 Le Crottin de Chevre
One day while we were walking around Paris last October, we
stopped to buy a picnic lunch at a small supermarket on a street hidden down
the side of a local church. The usual
items for us – some bread rolls, salami and cheeses. We got a pack of the everyday sliced Swiss
style cheese from a mass producer (which was nice but we won’t bother to write
about here), but I also spied various packs of smaller more interesting cheeses
at pretty good prices. I grabbed a twin
pack of Crottin de Chevre, under the Rians brand, made by Laitieres H.
Triballat in the village of Rians, in teh Berry region – almost the dead centre of France.
For €2.80 we got two 60g cheeses which were well packaged in
little plastic containers that protected the cheeses and which appeared to be
designed to allow them to breathe with minimal packaging touching the
rind. The rind of the cheeses was
covered in a fine layer of geotrichum wrinkles, and had a slightly creamy/ivory
colour with tinges of white starting to develop. The curd was firm and cracked slightly when
cut, but was creamy and fresh tasting, with only a slight (and pleasant) goat
flavour. The rind development had added
a little aroma and flavour to the goat curd and appeared to release a little
more goat milk flavour (from the broken down fats) around the rind. This was very nice on a fresh baguette. Later in the week Andrew finished it all up
by himself (nobody else was a goat cheese fan) on fresh bread with honey.
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
#28 St Clemens Danish Blue
#28 - St Clemens Danish Blue cheese
My father and his new wife Kirsten (who is Danish) bought us a piece of nice Danish blue cheese when they visited us in London on their way back from a conference. They purchased it from a local cheese shop near where they were staying in Denmark. Based on the label, we know it is a cheese from Bornholms Andelsmejeri, a co-operative on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic sea. Dad and Kirsten had visited Bornholm a couple of years before and had visited the dairy factory, but unfortunately they could not bring back the cheese to us in New Zealand!
St Clemens is the "export" division/label of Bornholms Andelsmejeri, and the Danish Blue (or Danablu) made under this label has a great pedigree. It has been named "World Champion" twice at the World Champion Cheese Contest in Wisconsin (in 1980 and 1998).
Because the cheese we tasted was wrapped without a label, we are not totally sure which version of St Clemens Blue it was, but after tasting it we suspect it was possibly the 60+ version (meaning 60% FDM, or 60% of the non-moisture substance in the cheese is fat). This would be around 35-36% total fat content in this cheese. It had a clean outer surface (there is no real rind with this style of cheese) with a white, slightly creamy colour. The greeny-blue mould was distributed well through the cheese which had a regular open structure. The flavour was sharp, tangy, and salty with a rich blue mould flavour. The cheese was not very crumbly, as can be the case with Danablu, and had a nice creamy texture.
We had been given quite a large wedge of this cheese, and only tried a a little before we went on a trip to Paris. On our return 8 days later, our housemates had finished it all off, so we can only assume they liked it too! This was a cheese we liked and recommend for blue lovers, although perhaps it is not a cheese to try first if you are new to blue cheeses. We would love to visit the island of Bornholm and see for ourselves where this cheese is made.
Further info: http://www.st-clemens.dk
My father and his new wife Kirsten (who is Danish) bought us a piece of nice Danish blue cheese when they visited us in London on their way back from a conference. They purchased it from a local cheese shop near where they were staying in Denmark. Based on the label, we know it is a cheese from Bornholms Andelsmejeri, a co-operative on the island of Bornholm in the Baltic sea. Dad and Kirsten had visited Bornholm a couple of years before and had visited the dairy factory, but unfortunately they could not bring back the cheese to us in New Zealand!
St Clemens is the "export" division/label of Bornholms Andelsmejeri, and the Danish Blue (or Danablu) made under this label has a great pedigree. It has been named "World Champion" twice at the World Champion Cheese Contest in Wisconsin (in 1980 and 1998).
Because the cheese we tasted was wrapped without a label, we are not totally sure which version of St Clemens Blue it was, but after tasting it we suspect it was possibly the 60+ version (meaning 60% FDM, or 60% of the non-moisture substance in the cheese is fat). This would be around 35-36% total fat content in this cheese. It had a clean outer surface (there is no real rind with this style of cheese) with a white, slightly creamy colour. The greeny-blue mould was distributed well through the cheese which had a regular open structure. The flavour was sharp, tangy, and salty with a rich blue mould flavour. The cheese was not very crumbly, as can be the case with Danablu, and had a nice creamy texture.
We had been given quite a large wedge of this cheese, and only tried a a little before we went on a trip to Paris. On our return 8 days later, our housemates had finished it all off, so we can only assume they liked it too! This was a cheese we liked and recommend for blue lovers, although perhaps it is not a cheese to try first if you are new to blue cheeses. We would love to visit the island of Bornholm and see for ourselves where this cheese is made.
Further info: http://www.st-clemens.dk
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