Cooking Hints and Tips
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Cheese |  |
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Cheese, is a food made from the pressed curd of milk, the coagulated solid part that is formed when milk sours. Most today are made from cow, goat and sheep milk, but yak, reindeer, buffalo, llama and camel milks are also used to make cheese. The milk used, the process and aging give the cheeses their distinctive flavors and textures. Cheese is composed of two main elements: solid (curds) and liquid (whey). The quality of a cheese is generally rated in terms of the fat content of the solid matter. The fattier the cheese, the finer in texture, whether creamy soft or extra dry, aged cheese. (A cheese's fat content is indicated on its label as a percentage or a numeral followed by a plus sign.) Cheese is a living food: Bacteria are what cause the milk to coagulate and become curds. Natural cheeses "ripen" as they age, and as the bacteria change, their flavors become more pronounced and their texture changes, too. ("Green" cheese refers not to a color but to an unripe cheese.) Cheese, like vegetables and fruits, is considered a living food. It must be handled carefully to keep it fresh. Look for cheeses that are cleanly sliced and wrapped, with appropriate signs of aging and ripeness. Some cheeses may be highly aromatic, even pungent, but they should not smell of ammonia; that indicates that the cheese is well past its prime. There should be no signs of drying or cracking, evidence the cheese was not handled properly. Keep the cheese wrapped in waxed paper, not plastic wrap, and place it in a loose-fitting bag so it can breathe yet retain humidity. Do not allow cheese to dry out. Wrap blue cheeses completely. Mold spores will spread rapidly not only to other cheeses but also to other foods in the refrigerator. Chilled cheeses should be taken out of the refrigerator from half an hour (soft cheeses) to two hours (hard cheeses) before serving. This helps develop aroma and flavor. Do not store cheese with other strong-smelling foods. As a cheese breathes, it will absorb other aromas and may spoil. Fresh soft cheeses can last in the fridge for three or four days. Semisoft, hard, and blue cheeses last about two weeks. Cheese, over all, does not freeze well. Use an egg slicer to slice fresh mozzarella. To cube it, also turn it 90 degrees and slice again. When cooking with cheese, the main thing to remember is that excessive heat and overcooking turn it stringy and leathery. Use low heat, just enough to melt the cheese and blend it with other ingredients. High heat makes natural cheese tough and stringy. Avoid long cooking, which makes cheese tough and stringy; cook just enough to melt. To promote even melting, slice, shred, grate, cube or dice cheese before adding as an ingredient. Lower-fat cheeses don't melt well. To shred cheese with soft texture, use a grater with large holes, or finely chop it. Broil foods topped with cheese, such as open-face sandwiches, pizza and vegetables, four to six inches from heat. When grilling/baking cheese-topped dishes, keep a close eye on them, because the cheese melts fast. Keep oven temperature between 325°F and 375°F. For longer baking, cover cheese with bread crumbs to protect and prevent toughening. To microwave cheese, use 30 percent (medium-low) to 70 percent (medium-high) power. Most retail stores sell cheese by weight. Use these equivalents for handy conversion: - 4 ounces semi-soft cheese to firm cheese = 1 cup - 4 ounces Blue or Feta = 1 cup crumbled - 3 ounces hard cheese = 1 cup grated Hardened cheese can be softened by soaking in buttermilk. Storing cheese in a tightly covered container with a few sugar cubes will retard mold. Use yogurt and ricotta cheese as low-fat alternatives to sour cream and regular cottage cheese. Brie cheese has an edible white crust with a creamy yellow interior. It has a mild to pungent flavor. Gouda cheese is a creamy yellow, often sold with a red wax coating. It has a mild, nutlike flavor. Gorgonzola cheese has a light tan surface, with a semimoist light yellow interior marbled with blue-green. It has a piquant, spicy flavor similar to Bleu Cheese. Camembert cheese has a grey-white edible crust and a creamy, soft interior. It has a mild to pungent flavor. Roquefort cheese is white, marbled with blue-green, pasty and sometimes crumbly. It has a sharp, spicy, piquant flavor. Asiago is a semi-firm Italian cheese with a rich nutty flavor. Sometimes it's available pre-grated in the dairy or deli department of the grocery store. Soften cream cheese by removing foil wrapper and microwaving on medium (50 percent) until softened. A 3-ounce package takes about 30 to 45 seconds and an 8-ounce package takes 60 to 90 seconds. To grate Parmesan cheese, move the wedge of Parmesan cheese up and down over the small holes on a grater until you have enough grated cheese for the recipe. When you want very thin slices of cheddar cheese for snacks and appetizers, let the cheese stand out at room temperature for 30 minutes to soften slightly. Use a very sharp knife or a cheese slicer to cut the cheese into thin slices. Turn the block of cheese after every few slices to keep the slices even. Aged cheeses are low in moisture and can be frozen without much change in flavor or consistency. Thaw frozen cheese in the refrigerator for 24 hours or more before using. Cottage cheese will keep fresh longer if it's refrigerated upside down in its original carton. Types of Cheese Cheese is sold either fresh - meant to be eaten as soon as it's made - or aged. Think of soft creamy cottage cheese as fresh, and hard, pungent Parmesan as aged: Those are the two extremes. *Soft and fresh: Domestic ricotta is a fresh cheese common in the United States, but tastier imports are available. If you like farmer's cheese, look for Petit-Suisse from Normandy - a very mild, fine-textured cheese sold in small, four-pack containers. Extra-rich cheeses include those to which cream is added to make them higher in butterfat. Mascarpone, from Italy, a creamy fresh cheese (actually just a clotted cream, but referred to as a cheese) is used in the classic dessert tiramisu. Boursin, a buttery, spreadable cheese usually mixed with garlic or herbs, comes from France. Other young cheeses include Feta, the Greek favorite made from sheep's milk (today, typically, part of it is made with goat's milk). It is sold in a brine to keep it fresh. Keep it in its brine to preserve the leftovers after opening. (You can make a "cream" cheese out of it by putting it in the blender or food processor with a bit of its brine or mix it with fresh goat cheese; it's then spreadable.) In South Florida, you also can find queso blanco, a popular fresh cow's milk cheese sold in Latin American markets. In some natural food stores, an Austrian import, Quark, is available. A creamy, mild cheese, it's prized for its low fat content. Most of the goat-milk cheese sold in deli cases also is fresh. It's creamy with a distinctive grassy flavor; good with red wines. *Semi-soft, typically young. They range from mild and buttery such as Muenster and Havarti to pungent and aromatic such as Limburger, the Italian Bel Paese, and the Dutch cheeses Gouda and Edam. True Mozzarella (the Italian, hand-made cheese sold in brine in delis) also falls into this category. *Semi-firm sharps: Most Americans think sharp New York Cheddar is a really pungent, aged cheese. That's because they haven't been exposed to a good, true Swiss cheese such as Emmental or the flavorful Gruyere de Comte. Both of these cheeses have a texture similar to a hard Cheddar but are more robust. Red Leicester is a Cheddar variety that's also pungent. Other sharps include the American Liederkranz, a cousin of Germany's Schlosskase - a very pungent cheese - and the French Epoisses, a cheese that's runny in the center when ripe, with an earthy aroma that some diners compare to old tennis socks. The Swiss have a similar cheese called Vacherin Mont d'Or that's commonly eaten out of its container because of its runny center. *Firm: Cheddar is one of the best-known cheeses around the globe. But you might not recognize the real thing from England: It's white and ranges from mild to very sharp and can be very firm, bearing little resemblance to most store- variety Cheddars produced in the United States. Its many Brit cousins include Cheshire, Derby, Double Gloucester, Leicester, Caerphilly and Lancashire - the latter being one of the cheeses best suited to grilled-cheese sandwiches. But variations on Cheddar have taken off, particularly in America, where we've introduced Longhorn, Monterey Jack, known as the "pizza cheese," and Colby, now also available in New Zealand. *Aged, and moldy: Some cheeses are sprayed or dusted with a strain of penicillin mold to cause them to ripen. Two of the most recognizable of those cheeses, called rind-ripened or bloomy-rind cheese, are Brie and Camembert. Because of factory production now making French Brie a household cheese, Americans wouldn't know the real thing. Brie de Meaux is not imported to the United States because it's made from unpasteurized milk. Its flavor is far stronger than the Brie we know; it was a favorite of French notables, who dubbed it their king of cheeses. Camembert is a smaller version of Brie that ripens to a more complex flavor. Both are semi-soft cheeses with runny centers and should be soft in the center once ripe. Take note: These cheeses are prone to spoilage if handled improperly and kept too warm for any length of time. If you open one and it smells even faintly of ammonia, return it to its store; it's not edible. A few bloomy-rind cheeses are extra rich, with high butterfat contents that qualify them as triple cremes. Explorateur, and Brillat-Savarin, both French, are two of the most well known and likely available at gourmet shops. *Blues: Blue-veined cheeses also are injected with the penicillin strain, so the mold is on the inside of these cheeses. They are sometimes pierced during aging to allow the mold to grow throughout the cheese, as in Roquefort or Gorgonzola. They are tangy and perfect for salads, as Americans eat them, but also excellent for dessert or with savory breads and meats, as the French and Italians eat them. They have the most interesting lineages: Roquefort, a sheep's milk cheese, has been produced in limestone caves in southern France for more than 1,000 years. It's one of the most strictly controlled cheeses around the world and one of France's prized food products. Stilton is England's contribution to blue cheese: It, too, is prized for its crumbly texture and smooth but tangy flavor. Gorgonzola is Italy's favorite; it's buttery and rich in butterfat; it melts well and is suitable as a dipping cheese for hard fruits or crunchy breads. Cabrales is a strong Spanish blue cheese typically wrapped in sycamore leaves, which give it an earthy flavor. Maytag Blue is a cousin of Roquefort produced in Iowa, and there are new blues coming from boutique cheese makers in the United States. *Great for grating, and well-aged: Parmigiano Reggiano, a hard, aged cheese from a very specific district in Italy, is the most well- known "flavoring" cheese in the United States, but Grana Padano, Asiago and Pecorino Romano, also of Italian heritage, also are aged and strong flavored and great for grating. Aged Gouda from Holland is used as a flavoring cheese in cooking, as is the more well-known Sbrinz from Switzerland.
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