Mmmm… Cheese!
Posted December 15th, 2008 by Howard TaylerA very thoughtful Schlocker sent a gift to me, delivered through wine.woot.com: cheese!
There was a strong, soft, crumbly bleu, a deliciously nutty Gouda, and a chevre (goat cheese) called “purple haze” that I just loved.
Better still, there was a recipe for making horse-durfees* out of the chevre. Mix it with chopped pistachios, olive oil, and ground black pepper, then spread it on prosciutto and wrap it around steamed asparagus. I followed the instructions (had to substitute a deli salami for the prosciutto, sadly) and it was delicious! Sandra liked it too, and we’ve shared some of those yummy appetizers** with our greek-food-loving neighbors.
So… you know who you are. Thank you!
* I hate looking up the spelling of that stupid French word every time I use it. If you’re well-read enough to correct my spelling, then you know what I meant. If you don’t know what I meant by “horse-durfees” then just assume horrible things about what French people will eat before a meal, and you’ll be on the right page.
** I suppose I could keep using the English word, but that drops these delicious rolls of asparagus, goat-cheese, and pistachios in the same category as TGIF’s mozzerella stix.
Explore posts in the same categories: Food, Home & Family, Humor
December 15th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
They’re horse doovers.
‘hors d’ouvres” (no, I didn’t look it up)
December 15th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Followed a premonition and stopped reading as I swallowed. Good thing too, when I got to your explanation of “horse-durfees” I laughed so hard I snotted anyway. My beverage would have covered the entire desktop.
December 15th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
oooh! would you be willing to share particulars of the recipe?? that sounds amazing!
December 15th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
(and by “particulars” i of course mean “how-much-of-which”…)
December 15th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Bookworm: Almost. “Hors d’oeuvres”.
I used to think a horse doover was a kind of orderve. (I knew there was no horsemeat in them, just like there’s no ham in a hamburger.)
Howard: You could say “antipasto”.
And the French apparently have two stupidly-spelled words for that concept. The other is “amuse-gueule”.
December 15th, 2008 at 10:46 pm
Oh, and it’s chèvre, with a grave accent.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Yes, those accents must be taken seriously ;-)
I am just wondering, are your neighbours Greek, or do they love Greek food? Could be both, of course.
December 15th, 2008 at 11:45 pm
Sam,
and here I thought it was “hors d’œuvres” – at least that’s what was in the book I was reading last night. Evidently you’re not sufficiently upper class if you don’t use ligatures.
Howard, talking about cheese cuisine, I was recently rereading your recipe for chupaquesos. Monterray Jack is unknown over here, and I haven’t found a good enough description of it to be able to pick a replacement cheese. If you had to replace it with a European (style) cheese, which one would you pick? Not that I’m in Europe, but I figure that any European cheese exported to the US should at least be known here, so I can get a better idea what it is like.
I asked a few of the local cheese-makers if they’d ever heard of it, but once they realised I was asking about an American cheese you’d think I’d just murdered somebody. Evidently Velveeta has a lot to answer for (not that I’ve ever seen that, either).
December 16th, 2008 at 12:15 am
Actually my late dad called them horses’ hooves. But to be really pedantic, “hors d’oeuvre” is an old-fashioned term, and “amuse-gueules” (probably better not to translate, although “stick this in yer face” wouldn’t be far off) are nibbles generally associated with the aperitif.
Here in France, you would start the meal with an “entrée”, which may just be a simple green salad, but can go all the way up to “foie gras mi-cuit avec oignons confits sur un lit de salade de saison” . Which it often does right now.
December 16th, 2008 at 12:57 am
I am Lactose-Intolerant…. :P
(And in my land, they are “horse ovaries”…. :P :P :P :P :P )
December 16th, 2008 at 4:25 am
Lactose intolerance isn’t a problem with goat cheese. It’s been popular with humans for thousands of years, long before some of us mutated into lactophiles.
The recipe:
3/4 cup chopped pistachio
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (something with a strong flavor)
4 oz goat cheese
Ground pepper to taste
Mix the above ingredients into a consistent spread. Now spread them on big slices of prosciutto (I bet any tasty deli meat will work — we used salami), lay a stalk of steamed asparagus at one end, and roll it up. Serve!
Better yet, throw it in the fridge and serve it tomorrow.
December 16th, 2008 at 6:07 am
eeee… french is a strange langauge… :)
translators dont quite get it, a dictionary is better!
” oars durves ” :D literally ‘out of the work’ – and as the french love food, ‘the work’ means the main meal!! – an appetiser to start your stomach working…
‘amuse-gueules’ translates as ‘cocktail snacks’ in babelfish, though gueule translates as ‘mouth’… ???
December 16th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Monteray Jack is, for all practical purposes a very young chedder. It’s sold semi-hard, typically after being aged only one month. It’s a whole milk – cow’s milk cheese, the curd is cut like chedder, perhaps with a little less salt, and sold very young. OLD Jacks are _three_ months old. It is therefore -very- mild, and grates into long shreds.
I have no idea what you would call that in europe, but there you go.
December 16th, 2008 at 8:13 am
I kinda think y’all owe the French a bit more re-spect for them fancy talk words, since it were William the Conqueror whose invasion of formerly British ruled England what conveyed the notion of con-tea-nen-tal kwee-zeen. Afore then there weren’t nothing more fancy than a sausage. And warm beer.
In point of fact, sausage comes from the French, too. (You can tell from the ‘-age’ ending.) So afore the Norman invasion they were probably called wurst, or haggis, if you weren’t so lucky.
Thanks to the Normans we have poultry and beef and pork and even vittles. No one laughs at them words, do they?
December 16th, 2008 at 8:43 am
Amuse-gueules? “Mouth fun?” In our household, we call that “foreplay”.
Seriously…Howard…don’t substitute salami for prosciutto. They’re not even close. You want a thin-sliced, dry-cured ham. Try Smithfield deli ham, capicola, or bayonne ham, all sliced paper thin, if you can’t find prosciutto. Salami is a *dry sausage* — not even in the same category, culinarily speaking.
Smithfield Deli Ham: http://www.smithfieldhams.com/product/310/3
December 16th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Oh, c’mon, vittles is almost as funny a word as ’spleen’.
Chèvre is one of my all time fave cheeses. While you probably would have difficulty using it in your favorite chupaqueso recipe, try stirring it into a savory sauce (as it happens, in a medieval-type feast I was at this weekend past, it was used in both a pan sauce over pork chops, and as part of the binder in lobster tartlets.)
Crumble it into a basic green salad with a few mint leaves, a basic viniagrette, pomegranate seeds, and chopped walnuts. You won’t be sorry you did.
Wrap a log of chèvre in mint and refrigerate a few days. Or, my fave horse doover–Making sure the chèvre is nice and cold, slice thinly (Dental floss is a good choice). Place in a jar with your favorite herbs and spices, some sun-dried tomato, and a good quality olive oil. Let it sit in the fridge for a few days, then fish them out and serve on nice crusty bread.
As to why American cheeses are looked upon with horror by the European world (warning: pedantic cheese geekery follows), many of the early settlers of what became America who made cheese came from the Cheddar region of England, or at least learned their trade there. And suddenly, they had miles and miles and miles of pasturage available. Milk was hugely available, and the demand for cheese in Europe (and especially England) was booming. Cheddar is a fairly easy to make, tasty cheese that’s remarkably sturdy and travels VERY well. So our forefathers made tons and tons of it, and shipped it over. It was extremely well received. So much so that the demand was out of sight. In order to keep up with the demand, the thrifty Americans began selling skim milk cheddar as full-fat, and making up the difference in milk fats with (ugh) LARD. When the cheese was young, no one could tell the difference, but lard quickly goes rancid…hence our lack of popularity, even today. And we don’t talk about Velveeta out of the country :) The famed columnist Herb Caen once described the town of Chico (where I am sitting at work at this moment) as the sort of town where you find Velveeta in the gourmet aisle.
The good news is that the American artisinal cheesemaking is making a huge comeback, and with all the microclimes and such here, we can make some truly excellent and unique cheeses–as well as duplicating (with varying degrees of success) many of the world’s famous ones. In fact, Howard, if I recall, that “Purple Fog” chèvre is made not too far from here, in the Napa Valley.
No jack cheese where you are, Stephen? You have my pity, since that would mean you also can’t get your hands on aged, dry Jack cheese, which is a delight in and of itself. Basically, what you’d look to replace Jack with would be a cow’s milk, young cheese, with no rind. Ask at your cheese shop for cheeses made with a mesophilic-A starter (and if they know what you’re talking about, then it’s obviously a good cheese shop).
December 16th, 2008 at 9:12 am
I’m now hungry for something I can’t have. Food allergies suck!!!
Ona
December 16th, 2008 at 9:55 am
Stephen: No Monterray Jack?!?
How have you survived such a tragedy? What do you put on your Nachos?
Let me know where you are so I may put it on my list of places to never visit. (Unless of course you have some other great cultural things that sufficiently make up for the lack of such goodness.)
No Monterray Jack, How can you people live like that?
And before I get flamed; Yes, I was being sarcastic, mostly.
Dang it all, Here I am going through this list of some really great sounding things to eat with my mouth just watering and all I have to eat in the house is some Tyson “Fun Nuggets” and plain ol’ pre-sliced American cheese.
You all look the other way while I lick my monitor screen and dream.
December 16th, 2008 at 11:18 am
Hey, I got a #10 can of industrial dehydrated cheese sauce powder here. Does that count? Don’t laugh (or gag) it makes killer mac and cheese. Especially with a couple tablespoons of the spray-dried eggs in the can next to it stirred in. Better ‘n Velveeta, also known as The Cheese That Will Not Die.
Stuff lasts forever and is *cheap*. In this economy, you do what you must.
I do sometimes get a chunk of good parmigiana reggiano for my pasta. The stuff in the green can just doesn’t cut it.
December 16th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
Due to lactose intolerance, I have to be careful with cheese. I do it sometimes, but not a lot.
For those who are lactose intolerant, two pieces of advice.
1) The more fats the better. The fattier the dairy, the slower the digestion. Intolerant doesn’t mean no enzymes, just a lower amount.
2) Aged cheeses are best. A hard white cheddar (black wax, usually), will give no trouble at all for lactose intolerant people – the lactose is used up in the aging.
December 16th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
If you’re sharing the food with Mediterranean food lovers of any description and it involves goat cheese, just call the whole thing meze. Easy to spell, and invokes more olive oil and garlic than you might care to imagine.
December 16th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Stephen: As a longtime editor who has a typography fetish, I thank you for your “hors d’œuvres.” A font sans ligatures ain’t a real font.
Howard: And, having said that, I am so plagiarizing “horse-durfees.”
–GS
December 16th, 2008 at 6:52 pm
@ hmoulding: Ummm… you do know that there were no British before William the Conquerer, right? There were the Angles and the Saxons.
And, yes… I do laugh at those words. I mean seriously: “pork” is one of those inherently funny words. “Pork!” It sounds like the Swedish Chef from the Muppets. “Pork pork pork!”
December 16th, 2008 at 6:56 pm
squidfood: Is it at all possible to invoke more olive oil and garlic than one might care to imagine?
I certainly know that lakes and mounds, respectively (stop laughing, people – I mean it!) are nowhere near enough to satisfy my yearly intake.
December 16th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I like to put a dollop of fata mixed with basil and tomatoes chunks, occasionally mixed with bacon as a filling for my chupaquesoes. The kids call this dad’s cheesy snack.
GlennG Says:
December 16th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Chèvre is one of my all time fave cheeses. While you probably would have difficulty using it in your favorite chupaqueso recipe….
December 16th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
William the Bastard was actually a Norman, AKA “Northman” down from Scandinavia, and adapted to Continental style of calf-length tunic.
In other words, a Viking in drag.
December 16th, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Greyscribe: You just inspired me to look up how to type æ and œ on the keyboard layout I’m using. Thank you.
It really improves the æsthetics of the text, dœsn’t it? ^_^
Cpt. Sqweky: No, there were (Celtic) Britons in Britain in Roman times. Sometime after the Romans left, the Angles and Saxons invaded the southern bit. Then the Normans invaded.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
@ Sam: True, but the Celts were EVERYWHERE, so they don’t really count…
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!
December 17th, 2008 at 2:16 am
Goat cheese, I just find unpalatable — the part of my brain which
makes the “Food | Not Food” decision comes down solidly on the
latter where G.C. is concerned. No idea why….
So I end up making my pizza the “original” way. :) (Cheese was a
later addition.)
December 17th, 2008 at 6:35 am
Viking in drag. Cute. My European History teacher would have loved that.
Sure, William hailed from the land of the Vikings, Normandy, in the north of … France. Huh. Sure, the place had Viking settlers, but then so did most of Europe that had coastline, as well as bits that didn’t. Normandy became Normandy about a hundred years before William the Conqueror, when the area was given to a Viking called Rollo. I picture a fellow with lots of piercings, chains, and leather that one might meet at a particularly lively rave.
According to *some* chroniclers (Norman ones, of course) William should have succeeded Edward the Confessor, but the Witgengemot (Wise Old Guys Meet-up, Yo!) wanted a Saxon.
Yup, a Saxon. Them’s the ones that ruled the islands. William promptly kicked ass and turned all the Saxons into second-class citizens, little better than slaves. Don’t piss off the Normans, right?
So who were the Saxons ruling? They were ruling the Britons. Or British people. That’s what writers from as long back as before the (attempted) Roman conquest of the Islands called them. It was mostly informal, a moniker they earned due to their blue tattoos, by some theories. The Romans made it official, calling their conquest Brittannia.
The Saxons didn’t show up for another five hundred years. They were initially mercenaries, invited to help in a dispute over the British throne. Like good Germans they turned it into an opportunity for conquest, and within 200 years pretty much ran the place, or at least a lot of it.
December 17th, 2008 at 6:44 am
You know, at times like this it is great to be of Bavarian decent and know that silly things like french words and foods were just things to come in and conquer. :D
Now if we could just figure out how to wipe Lederhosen out of any historical references.
December 17th, 2008 at 8:10 am
Velveeta, otherwise known as “cheese food”. What you feed your cheese.
December 17th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
the term ‘too much garlic’ is a nonsense – there’s no such thing! (And I speak as someone who is English for at least 5 generations back on both sides!)
December 17th, 2008 at 9:22 pm
The Cheese That Cannot Die–I see there’s another Doon fan here.
Velveeta was invented so vegetarians could have Spam, too.
December 17th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
Anti Pasto is actually a misspelling of ante pasto, which means “before the meal.”
And my father used to refer to appetizers as “whore’s ovaries.”
As far as “too much garlic,” one of my co-workers who is Indian was dating an Italian girl who was a UW grad student and an intern on a different team. Her parents were coming to Seattle to visit her, so he asked her to get one of her parents’ favorite recipes for him to prepare for dinner. She complied. He’d never cooked with garlic before, and confused “cloves” with “bulbs.” Adding 6 bulbs of garlic made the sauce “a bit strong.”
December 17th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Misspelling? Try “linguistic drift”. It’s Italian, not Latin. If it was Latin, it’d be “ante pastus”.
December 17th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
I find my I must defend the (e.g. my) Mediterranean-ness in my previous comment: my own (and the correct) response to “more garlic than you can imagine” is of course “I dunno… I can imagine quite a bit.”
December 18th, 2008 at 6:52 am
Just a quick aside: A food has to be at least 51% cheese to be a cheese food. Cheese seems to be a voracious cannibal.
Velveeta is less than 51% cheese, which makes it a cheese product (just like those cheap bags of store brand shredded stuff… ew…)
@ArdRhi: Do those spray dried eggs resemble corn pops in appearance? Those things amaze me.
December 18th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Google for woven bacon cheese. Pictures are all over the web, haven’t found the originator yet. I doubt it is possible to fit more bacon or more cheese into a single item of food. :) Adding real bacon bits to the cheese filling might be a little excessive.
The “American Processed Cheese Product” that comes in the individually wrapped slices is astronomical units better than Velveeta. That stuff *slumps* like a gob of properly mixed concrete when taken out of its packaging. I wonder if Velveeta is actually a thixotropic liquid. Would it flow if vibrated sufficiently, without application of heat?
If you like Monterey Jack and/or Colby cheese, try ColbyJack (sometimes called Cojack) which is Colby and Monterey Jack loosely mixed together while they’re not quite solid, then pressed.
I don’t like stinky cheeses. Cheese with mold (intentionally infested or not) is right out. My brain believes my other senses when they say “This could make you sick/kill you.”. Who was the first nutcase to actually attempt to eat Bleu Cheese AND decide it was ‘edible’?
January 14th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
Since I did’nt find it listed here I thought I add my take on Bacon rols.
It’ll be the death of me but I’ll die happy. Use this link for pictures:
http://foodproof.com/photos/view/bacon-cheese-roll-1290
Here’s the process:
1.Weave the basket: take 12 pieces of bacon and weave a basket. C’mon you’re crafty. Pretend your making me a wallet. If you’re sqeamish wear food safe gloves. Almost as much fun as a hog butcher.
2.Fry the bacon in an oven at about 375 to 400 degrees until cooked. I fry my bacon on a grill on a quarter loaf cooking pan which works too.
3.When cooked, drain the excess fat. Blot with paper towels if you’re a fanatic about that sort of thing.
4.Put shredded cheese on top of the bacon and back in the oven for a minute to let it melt a bit.
5. Take the weave out, place on a heat proof surface (a cutting board works well), and roll it tightly. Use some sense so you don’t burn yourself on the hot cheese that will ooze out.
6.Let it rest for a few minutes (5 minutes should be plenty), then slice into one inch wide bites, You may want to run a wooden spike/toothpick to hold it in place. You can stuff it with bacon bits, altho I’m more likely to use horseradish or salsa as a stuffing inside the cheese.
7.Serve. Dip in a nice salsa for a sample of what heaven must be like.
The first time I tried this just to see how it’d turn out. Took a pound of bacon, made the weave, fried it up on the grill, drained the fat, placed the cheese (about a pound) on the weave then back on the grill to melt the cheese. Rolled it, cut it into about 10 pieces to serve, ATE THEM ALL. Stumbled to the couch and slept for three hours.
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