All About Cheese:

Cheese is nutritious food made mostly from the milk of cows but also other mammals, including sheep, goats, buffalo, reindeer, camels and yaks. Around 4000 years ago, people started to breed animals and process their milk. That’s when cheese was born.

Essential Chefs Catering knows all about cheese. Many of the dishes they serve feature some of the specialty cheeses shown below ~ including grana padano, burrata, queso de burgos, chevre, asiago, and many more…

Serving and Storage Tips:

• Unpasteurized cheese with a range of flavors should not be sliced until purchase otherwise it will start to lose its subtlety and aroma.
• Keep the cheese in conditions in which it matures. Hard, semi-hard and semi-soft cheeses are stored in the temperatures from around 8 – 13 ℃.
• Keep the cheese wrapped in the waxed paper and place it in a loose-fitting food-bag not to lose humidity and maintain the circulation of air.
• Wrap blue cheeses all over as mold spores spread readily not only to other cheeses but also to everything near.
• Chilled cheeses should be taken out of the refrigerator one and a half or two hours before serving.
• Cheeses contain living organisms that must not be cut off from air, yet it is important not to let a cheese dry out.
• Do not store cheese with other strong-smelling foods. As a cheese breathes it will absorb other aromas and may spoil.
• Wrap soft cheeses loosely. Use waxed or grease proof paper rather than cling film.
• Let cold cheese warm up for about half an hour before eating to allow the flavour and aroma to develop.

How to match cheese and wine:

Both cheese and wine, with their centuries-old traditions, are natural products that are frequently consumed together. As a rule, the whiter and fresher the cheese the crisper and fruitier the wine should be. The great advantage of this union is that cheese and wine are both foods that can be enjoyed in their “raw” state, with little or no preparation, making them an ideal choice for quick snacks.

There are no hard and strict rules about which wine should be selected to accompany a particular cheese as the best selections are almost always based on individual tastes. However, we can offer you following principles:

• A smooth, fatty cheese may go very well with a similarly smooth, slightly oily wine.
• Sweet wine contrasts very well with a cheese with high acidity.
• White wines go better with many cheeses than reds.
• Not all red wines match with cheese. The most recommended are the fruity, light red wines.
• Dry, fresh red wines are ideally suited to soft cheeses, especially goat ones.
• A wine with good acidity may be complemented by very salted cheeses.
• Dry champagnes are brilliant combination with bloomy white rinds.
• The cheeses can be matched with beer or cider.
• Try regional combination, the cheese and wine from the same region.

For more information on cheese, visit www.cheese.com