Something Different: Three Different Cheese You Must Try!

Greetings, foodie friends!

With this post I want to shine the spotlight on some fantastic cheeses which I feel don't get the attention they deserve. Everyone knows such favourites as cheddar, parmesan and brie but there is a whole world of flavour out there and I want to discuss three of my favourites.

In choosing my cheeses, I have tried to pick ones which are a little unusual but not so rare as you need to go to horrendous lengths to get them. If this means you already know about them I apologise in advance for the vexatious time you might experience reading the rest of my piece. There is nothing worse than an flush-faced guide ‘introducing’ you to the path you travel down to get to work everyday.

Anyway, for those who don't know I present three wizard cheeses which you should definitely try now!

Red Leicester

A mature red leicester is a thing of beauty. Crumbly, salty and tangy, this hard orange cheese is as fantastic raw as it is melted. It tastes REALLY good melted on granary bread with pickle but can generally be used as an interesting alternative to cheddar as they are both salty and have a similar consistency whether at room temperature or melted.

Taleggio

This cheese is truly magical. Combining the strength of stilton with the consistency of a really soft camembert, taleggio is rather disconcerting to look at, surrounded as it with an orange rind sprinkled liberally with mould. Honestly, this is fine and does not need to be removed.

Tangy with pleasing herby undertones, Taleggio is a fantastic lunch cheese as it is both the perfect counterpoint to sweet fruit such as figs and the perfect complement to salty olives. It is pretty strong, so really stands out when smeared on bread or crackers even in small quantities.

Taleggio also melts surprisingly well. I frequently use it in pasta and risotto dishes, where it completely dissolves into creamy loveliness without loosing any of its strength.

Jarlsberg

Jarlsberg is a hard Norwegian cheese with a rubbery rather than crumbly texture. The flavour is exceedingly nutty and lacks the sharp tang of many cheeses, giving it a fabulous fresh quality in the eating. It is wonderful eaten raw but I also very much enjoy baking with it. Its flavour brings a clean, meadowy taste to breads and muffins as opposed to the salty heaviness or, frankly, blandness given by many other cheeses (I'm looking at you edam!).

Well, there they are, three cheese which are not in the mainstream psyche but which I just adore. But that's just me - which are your favourites? And, if you've had any experience of the above selection, what do you think of them? Leave a post in the comments below and we can talk cheese until we're blue (veined) in the face!

Recipe Time: Cherry and Almond Brownies

Greatings, fellow guzzlers!

In this post, I'd like to bring you a lovely little take I have on brownies. Now, I must admit that my recipe is based on James Morton's excellent brownie recipe in How Baking Works. If you only buy one book this year, buy this one. His recipes and tips are superb and I have honestly never had a better brownie, having tried several recipes over the years.

I reckon his secret is the long, slow cooking time (I actually found he slightly underestimated the time they took to cook)and the use of caster sugar. I feel it is easy to obsesses about making the brownies the gooeyest, richest ever in the history of the entire universe and actually end up ruining the result. A bit like swinging an axe, just let the material do the work and the result is perfection. And so with the caster sugar. I find it's lighter taste than, say, muscovado, sweetens the mix as it should while allowing the luxurious intensity stem from the chocolate and cocoa powder.

Where my recipe differs from Morton's is in cooking time, tin size and, of course, flavourings.

Obviously, I'm adding almonds and cherries but I also add a teaspoon of vanilla essence. I find it adds another little flavour layer to brownies, the sort that causes you to laugh maniacally on the sofa while smearing cake all over your face. Cherries and almonds are a classic combination and their heady flavours and the chewy texture of dried cherries are perfect complements for chocolate.

As for tins, I favour a 9x9 inch brownie pan over an 8x8. The reason for this that all the 8x8s I have ever found are cheap and thin. Thicker tins disperse heat more evenly and, more importantly if you do a lot of baking, are far more resistant to warping. I have an 8x8 tin and, after comparatively few uses, the thin metal has already warped sufficiently that it is useless for producing finer cakes that need to be perfectly level.

Well, after that preamble let's get on with the recipe!

Ingredients (Makes 12)

• 250g Dark Chocolate (at least 70% cocoa solids)
• 250g Salted Butter
• 300g Golden Caster Sugar
• 3 Eggs, plus 1 Egg Yolk
• 60g Plain Flour
• 60g Cocoa Powder
• 50g Whole Blanched Almonds
• 50g Dried Cherries
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Essence

Method

Preheat and oven to 160°C (Gas Mark 3) or 140°C for a fan oven and prepare almonds by chopping them into large chunks. Line a 9x9 inch brownie pan/baking tin with baking parchment, doing this as neatly as possible to prevent unsightly dents in the sides of your brownies.

Beat the eggs in a bowl until combined and add to the sugar. Mix the two together gently until just combined and set aside. Beating hard will mix air into the mixture like a super incompetent meringue mix and prevent the brownies from achieving the full fudgey glory.

Break the chocolate into pieces, chop up the butter and throw together into a bowl. From this point, you can go very naturalistic and melt over a saucepan of boiling water or you can hurl it into a microwave like I do. If you chose the latter option, be very careful to keep taking the mixture out and stirring it to prevent the parts of the mixture which melt first from burning. Trust me, I've burned chocolate one in the microwave and it was disgusting.

I like to take the melty mix out of the microwave with a few little pieces of chocolate still floating around and use the heat of the mixture to finish the job. If you do this, it should not be so hot as to scramble the eggs in the next stage which is -

- gently pouring the chocolate and butter liquid into the eggy sugar. Whisk as you pour the mixture in to make sure the egg does not become cooked by the chocolate's heat but not so hard as to introduce lots of air.

Mix the flour, cocoa powder, almonds, cherries and vanilla essence together and add to the wet mix. Fold in with a metal spoon until you have just reached the point where no flour is visible. With flour in the mix, there is now the threat of developing gluten which will stiffen the brownie. So, once again, keep the mixing to a minimum.

Pour into the tin, level the surface and bake for about an hour until the mix no longer wobbles or makes crackling noises when taken out of the oven.

Allow to cool, cut into twelve and serve as and when you like.