Quick guide to cheese

by Tim Sousa

Cheese. It's a wonderfully versatile food. We use it to top pizzas, to sprinkle on our spaghetti, to spread on crackers. And without cheese, a grilled cheese sandwich would be nothing but buttered toast.

Cheese is produced in many parts of the world, two of the most well known countries being France and Italy. There are many varieties of cheese, but they are all made in a similar fashion. Milk and cream consist of two parts, the solid milk fats, and the whey. Cheese is produced by causing the fats to come together, forming curds. This is done by either adding acid or various bacteria to the milk or cream, causing it to curdle.

The curds are then processed in different ways to form different cheeses. The type of cheese made depends on the type of milk used, the percentage of fats in the milk, and the process used to make the cheese. Most cheeses come from cow's milk, but cheeses are also made from goat's milk, sheep's milk, and real mozzerella cheese is made from water buffalo milk. Cheese is generally categorized

by it's texture, hard, semi-firm, semi-soft, or fresh.

Hard cheeses are generally aged for 12 months or more. They usually have a sharp salty taste, and are excellent for grating over pasta or salads. Parmesan, Asiago, and Romano are examples of hard cheeses.

Semi-hard cheeses may or may not be aged. In general, the longer the cheese ages, the sharper the flavor will be. A taleggio, which only ages for about 6 weeks will have a milder flavor than a cheddar that has aged for months. Semi-firm cheeses are good melting cheeses, or good to eat on their own.

Semi-soft cheeses like Camembert are good cheeses for spreading on crackers or crusty bread.

Fresh cheeses range from a mild cream cheese, to a rich creamy marscapone. These cheeses can be eaten spread on crackers, but are also commonly used for cooking desserts. Marscapone is an essential ingredient in tiramisu.

While talking about cheese, we can't forget to mention blue cheese, which is a cheese, with blue-green veins of mold, which gives the cheese a sharp flavor and aroma. Blue cheeses include gorgonzola, roquefort, and stilton.

If you are going to be serving cheese as part of a cheese course, hard, semi-firm, and semi-soft cheeses shoud be allowed to stand at room temperature for an hour before serving. Fresh cheeses, should be served chilled. Choose three or four types of cheese, either cheeses with similar characteristics and flavors, or contrasting cheeses. If you like, you can serve the cheese with crackers or crusty bread. Also some people serve their cheeses with a variety of fruits, apples, pears, figs, and seedless grapes would be good choices, as well as shelled walnuts.

Whether you like using cheese for cooking, or eating on it's own, cheese delivers it's own goodness and flavor.

Readmore »»

Cottage cheese tradition at Smith’s Dairy

BY Saimi Rote Bergmann REPOSITORY FOOD WRITER

ORRVILLE - Cottage cheese at Smith Dairy is made by hand, by eye, and by feel.

“It’s a craft,” said plant manager Karl Kelbly.

Smith’s in Orrville has been owned by the same family since it was founded in 1909. It still makes cottage cheese the old-fashioned way, with no premium placed on speed.

“A lot of people don’t make their own cultures like we do. Then we do a longer set, longer cook — just a slower process,” Kelbly said.

Cheesemaker Randy Hicks closely monitors the process, baby-sitting the 36-foot-long vats as the yeastlike cultures grow and the milk slowly separates into whey on top and a gelatinous block of curd on the bottom. Then he cuts the curd with “knives” that look like giant screens, creating the small pieces of curd you see in cottage cheese.

“Then they are cooked for two hours. It gets up to about 140 degrees,” Kelbly said. “Randy watches it closely. If it gets too firm it’s like eating BBs, if it-s too soft, they’ll fall apart, be pasty.”

How does Smith’s cottage cheese compare to brands that use chemicals to quick-set? Well, Kelbly may be partial, but he believes Smith’s has more flavor.

“Others can be too sharp, too acid, or musty,” he said. “Ours is creamy, with buttery notes.”

STEADY SALES

What’s the best way to enjoy cottage cheese? Purists like it plain. President Nixon liked it covered with ketchup and black pepper. Dieters in the ’60s and ’70s ate it on top of a canned peach half.

Try it on a slice of tomato, drizzled with balsamic vinaigrette. Stir a tablespoon of your favorite jam into 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, then spread on a toasted bagel. Mix cottage cheese with chopped herbs and use as a topper for baked potatoes.

Other than a brief surge during the low-carb craze, cottage cheese sales have been steady for decades, according to Penny Baker, Smith’s director of marketing.

“Sour cream goes up and down, like for the holidays, because they see it as an ingredient,” Baker said. “With cottage cheese, they see it more as a stand-alone item, and we’re trying to show them they can cook with it.”

Baker recommends substituting cottage cheese for applesauce when baking low-fat muffins, cookies and cakes. Her recipe for “Guilt-Free Brownies” calls for cottage cheese instead of butter or oil.

MAYO SUBSTITUTE

Cottage cheese also can serve as a substitute for mayonnaise as in a recipe for “Humpty Dumpty” egg salad from “The Cottage Cheese Cookbook” by G&R Publishing. ($4.50). Chopped egg is combined with chopped celery, cottage cheese, shredded cheddar and mustard.

To cut calories, replace some of the cream cheese in cheesecake recipes with cottage cheese, as in the recipe for a crustless cheesecake with sour cream topping from “The Cottage Cheese Cookbook.”

Of course, not all recipes made with cottage cheese are low-calorie. The indulgent Dairy Potatoes recipe found at www.smithdairy.com is creamy and cheesy. Better yet, it’s simple to make. Just combine diced potatoes, onion, garlic, cottage cheese, sour cream and cheddar cheese in a casserole dish and bake until bubbly.

Cottage cheese can substitute for ricotta in Italian dishes such as lasagna and manicotti. The low-carb crowd will like the pasta-free manicotti recipe from Smith’s Web site. Instead of pasta, chicken breasts pounded thin are rolled around a cottage cheese filling, then baked in tomato juice and topped with mozzarella cheese. Readmore »»

Cheese-Topped Beef and Potato Bake

by Mary Beth Roe

Serves: 4 Servings

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lb Ground beef
1 md Onion; diced
1 md Celery stalk; diced
32 oz Tomato sauce
4 oz Mushrooms; sliced
1/2 c Water
3/4 ts Salt
1/2 ts Sugar
1/4 ts Pepper
3 md Potatoes; thinly sliced
4 oz Mozzarella cheese; shredded

Instructions:

Cook beef , onion, and celery until browned. Stir in tomato sauce,
mushrooms, water, salt, sugar and peppe. Heat to boiling; reduce heat to
low. Cover and simmer 5 minutes. Into a 9x13-inch baking dish, spoon 1/3 of
beef mixture. Arrange 1/2 of potato slices on top. Repeat, ending with
ground beef mixture. Cover dish with foil. Bake in 375 degree oven for 1
hour or until potatoes are tender. Remove from oven. Discard foil. Sprinkle
with cheese. Return to oven just until cheese melts. Readmore »»

Cheese-Topped Beef and Potato Bake

Mushrooms, Ground beef, Mozzarella,

by Mary Beth Roe

Serves: 4 Servings

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lb Ground beef
1 md Onion; diced
1 md Celery stalk; diced
32 oz Tomato sauce
4 oz Mushrooms; sliced
1/2 c Water
3/4 ts Salt
1/2 ts Sugar
1/4 ts Pepper
3 md Potatoes; thinly sliced
4 oz Mozzarella cheese; shredded

Instructions:

Cook beef , onion, and celery until browned. Stir in tomato sauce,
mushrooms, water, salt, sugar and peppe. Heat to boiling; reduce heat to
low. Cover and simmer 5 minutes. Into a 9x13-inch baking dish, spoon 1/3 of
beef mixture. Arrange 1/2 of potato slices on top. Repeat, ending with
ground beef mixture. Cover dish with foil. Bake in 375 degree oven for 1
hour or until potatoes are tender. Remove from oven. Discard foil. Sprinkle
with cheese. Return to oven just until cheese melts.

Mushrooms Readmore »»

How cheese makes finest wines taste like cheap plonk

mozzarella, cheddar, red wine

by Cahal Milmo

For generations, it has been the fare of choice at charity fundraisers and suburban soires: a cube of cheddar on a cocktail stick and a glass of cheap red wine.

Now, it seems, the organisers of cheese and wine parties were right all along to choose plonk rather than premier crus to go with their fromage.

Scientists have found that, when sampling a fine claret or expensive burgundy, the last foodstuff it should be paired with is its traditional gustatory ally, cheese.

The study, which submitted the tastebuds of 11 ordinary drinkers to eight cheeses combined with cheap and expensive wines, found the cheese always masked the fine flavours of a pricey vintage.

Where the tasters would have expected to hold forth on the berry and oak flavours of a full-bodied cabernet sauvignon or the light tannins of a pinot noir, it was found they were indistinguishable from a bottle of supermarket plonk.

New Scientist magazine said the strongest-flavoured cheeses, stilton and gorgonzola, overwhelmed the flavours of wine more than milder products such as mozzarella. Butthe American researchers found all the cheeses reduced the flavours and aromas of wine, regardless of their cost, exploding the myth that a fine cheese can be enhanced by a perfect wine.

Hildegarde Heymann, professor of viticulture and enology at the University of California, who coordinated the study, said: "There seems to be a wisdom that great wine and good cheese are enhanced if you have the perfect wine to go with the perfect cheese. Our work suggests this is not the case.

"Whatever the cost of the wine, each cheese reduced the sensitivity to the flavours of the wine. The overall reduction was small - about 0.4 on a scale of one to 10 - but cheese detracted from the flavour of the wine."

The researchers think fat molecules in the cheese may coat the mouth and deaden perceptions of other flavours. The only flavour enhanced by the wine was the aroma of butteriness - caused by a flavour molecule found in both wine and cheese.

mozzarella Readmore »»

Double onion soup with cheese

oregano, Worcestershire sauce, mozzarella cheese


Serves 4

This classic soup, one of France's best-known specialties, comes
from the picturesque Burgundy and Lyons regions. Don't rush this
soup--the key to its authentic flavor lies in slow-cooking the onions
until they turn amber. The sugar helps to caramelize and brown the
onions even more.

Vegetable oil spray

1 teaspoon corn oil stick margarine
2 cups thinly sliced yellow onion (about 2 medium)
1 cup thinly sliced red onion (about 1 medium)
3 cloves garlic, crushed or minced
1/2 teaspoon sugar
4 cups fat-free, low-sodium chicken broth
2 tablespoons dry sherry or white wine vinegar
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
2 tablespoons grated or shredded Parmesan cheese
1 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano or 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano,
crumbled

Black pepper to taste
4 slices French bread, lightly toasted

Spray large saucepan with vegetable oil spray. Add margarine and
melt over medium-low heat. Add yellow and red onions. Cook about 20
minutes, or until yellow onions are tender and light brown, stirring
occasionally. Add garlic and sugar. Increase heat to medium and cook 5
minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in chicken broth, sherry,
Worcestershire sauce, and salt. Bring to boil, reduce heat, and simmer,
covered, for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat broiler.

In a small mixing bowl, toss together remaining ingredients except
bread. Sprinkle cheese mixture evenly on toasted bread. When soup is
almost done, place bread on unheated rack of broiler pan. Broil about
4" from heat 1-2 minutes, or until cheese melts and turns light brown.

To serve: Ladle soup into bowls and top each serving with bread
slice.

Nutrition analysis (per serving): 180 calories, 8 g protein, 27 g carbohydrates,
4 mg cholesterol, 611 mg sodium, 4 g total fat, 2 g saturated fat,
1 g polyunsaturated fat, 1 g monounsaturated fat

oregano Readmore »»