CHEESE OF THE DAY: ALEX JAMES' GRUNGE

Bass player of the band Blur, turned cheese maker, Alex James is a well known name as a celebrity cheesemaker. He has successfully made the transition from working in rock'n'roll to working in curds'n'whey. I'm sure when he started out on his cheese journey some 15+ years ago, many people scoffed at him and considered it a bit of a joke that a rock star could produce great cheese, but Alex James has certainly proved the critics wrong and has now stood the test of time in the cheese-World. He and his team have made some rather excellent cheeses, so today we throw a spotlight on his washed rind semi-soft cheese called 'Grunge'.

Grunge is a farmhouse style mild & smooth pale coloured cheese with a slightly peppery spiced orange rind that just tickles the back of your throat without being too strong and funky. I had some on a hot day sliced and thrown onto a heavily buttered slice of tigerbread (the saltyness of the tigerbread crust and butter complimented this cheese very well)... a nice treat on a sunny afternoon. Washed (I believe) in cider, it would make sense to pair it with a light crisp dry cider.

I actually got this in a delivery of various Alex James cheeses from Pong, so expect a couple more of his cheeses reviewed soon.

CHEESE OF THE DAY: SYKES FELL SHEEPS MILK CHEESE

Sykes Fell is a Sheep's milk cheese made by the Greenfields dairy in Lancashire and handed down through 80 years in the Proctor family. It is pale in colour, smooth and creamy, but with a sharp tangy flavour. Accompanied by a fruity/spicy chutney and some oat biscuits this cheese makes a delicious addition to your cheeseboard. Also nice to have a good flavoursome cheese made from sheepsmilk (said to be healthier and more nutritious than cows or goats milk cheese).
Baaaaaaaa!

CHEESE OF THE DAY: MONTAGNOLO AFFINE

What??? a cheese from supermarket giant Tesco??? Yes yes yes - like most people I love buying cheese fresh from the counter of my local cheese shop or independent deli, but necessity sometimes rules the day and there are actually plenty of cracking cheeses in the finest or taste the difference ranges in major supermarkets these days.
This particular cheese was a lovely creamy, salty cheese and was not overly strong in the blue tang. A pleasant eat on its own, but I found it even better as the base for a blue cheese sauce - it just melted down into a cheesegasmic pourable sauce that tasted bloomin marvellous - thank you Tesco!!!

CHEESE OF THE DAY: SMOKEY REDWOOD

Ahoy there cheese fans - after a long break from cheese blogging the Mighty Cheeseboard is back with this award winning little number as cheese of the day! Its called Smokey Redwood and is made by the fantastic Cheshire Cheese Company. Smokey Redwood is a true delight - its quite a soft and smooth textured cheddar with a strong mature flavour and a gentle paprika smokey finsh.  If you like a smoked cheese, but sometimes find them too strong on the old smoking, then this cheese is just the ticket to tickle your tastebuds.
You can find more about the Cheshire Cheese Company and their excellent range of cheeses here: www.cheshirecheesecompany.co.uk

CHEESE OF THE DAY: GARCIA BAQUERO IBERICO

Having had a busy start to the year, I feel I may have neglected the Mighty Cheeseboard blog for a while - for those followers who have been waiting for more updates, I am back with a renewed taste for cheese - mainly after tasting this particular Spanish delight. Garcia Baquero Iberico is a mature Manchego-like cheese. Its got the slight sweetness & nutty taste that Manchego has, but aged for 6 months, has a more complex taste and is slightly less dense than regular Manchego. Its made of a mixture of Sheep, Goat and Cow's milk (40% Sheep, 35% Goat & 25% Cow). Texture-wise its slightly firmer/harder than a good solid cheddar. A Spanish delight that would be a great addition to any tapas feast or just ate on its own with a caramalised onion chutney or a sweet chilli jam.
Adios amigos!!!

CHEESE OF THE DAY: BEAUFORT

Beaufort is a French cheese made in Beaufort (hence the name) - up in the French alps. They use only milk from local alpine grazing cows that help to give Beaufort its creamy flavour and slightly nutty/fruity finish. It falls somewhere between a Comte and an Emmental in both flavour and texture. I found it slightly unusaual in the fact upon imediate tasting I wasnt bowled over by this cheese, but I kept going back for another taste. I think if you love Comte - then this cheese will be a new favourite for you!!!

CHEESE OF THE DAY: SNOWDONIA RED DEVIL

Snowdonia cheeses are all pretty decent - however this Red Devil is a particular favourite flavour of mine! Its a Red Leicester - full flavoured with a slightly saltyness to it combined with chilli and crushed pepper. Its got a nice decent heat to it that leaves your mouth watering and wanting more. The heat is well infused into the cheese without turning the cheese acidic like with some chilli infused cheeses you get. It is hot though, so is best served with a sweet chutney or relish to counterbalance it! I had mine with some sweet fig relish and it was so good I eat the whole block in one sitting! Yum!

CHEESE OF THE DAY: TOME OSABA

Unfortunatly I dont have much information about this particular cheese other than that on the sign - its an unpasturised sheeps milk cheese and its bloody delicious! It has a nutty taste like that of an Emmental, but without the sweetness. Texture wise its quite a hard but smooth cheese like a Comte. I picked up a wedge of this at the Christmas market in Manchester outside the town hall. I can say it didnt last long & if you are visiting the Manchester Christmas markets to keep your eyes open for this Sheeps milk beauty! Delicious!

CHEESE OF THE DAY: SAINT ALBRAY

After a trip to the Manchester Christmas Markets - I picked up some nice cheeses at a fantastic cheese stall - amongst which was this smelly delight! Yes its a real stinker (almost clearing the bus with the smell on the way home), but despite its extreeme odour, Saint Albray is a delicious rich and creamy cheese with a taste not unlike Camenbert. It is produced using pasturized cows milk and formed into a flower shape, and first made in 1976 in the Basque country and Bearn region of southwest France. A very nice if not pongy soft and creamy cheese.

CHEESE OF THE DAY: AMBER MIST

The Snowdonia Cheese Company do a range of really good cheeses, I have a nice selection of 3 to sample - so here is the first one "Amber Mist". Its a slighty sweet & salty softer cheddar with a hint of whisky. I think what is good about this cheese is they have got the balance right - all the attributes of a good cheddar with a slight taste of whisky. I think if it was a stronger whisky taste it would have completely over shadowed the excellent taste of the cheddar. Lovely with a chutney with a bit of heat to it (I had it with apple, fig & chilli chutney) - another very tasty cheese from the Snowdonia Cheese Company!!!

CHEESE OF THE DAY: REBLOCHON

Reblochon is a French cheese made in the Haute-Savoire in the French Alps. It is a semi-soft rich creamy cheese with an earthy aftertaste. At room temperature it starts to soften and starts to ooze a little bit - its at this point it is best to eat - fully releasing its flavour. The name Reblochon translates as "to pinch a cows udder again" and is in reference to the fact that in the 14th century when this cheese was first produced, the landowners would tax the farmers according to how much milk was produced - so farmers started holding back milking until the milk was measured out for taxing each day - this produced a much richer milk from which this cheese was made. I certainly enjoyed "to pinch a cows udder again"!

CHEESE OF THE DAY: TABASCO CHEESE SLICES

Aaaah the cheese slice - personally I'd tend to stay away from cheese slices in preference to getting a good block of cheese and cutting slices fresh....... but if you want a quality precut cheese slice to go on your burger or melted on top of your chilli or nachos then look no further than the offical Tabasco branded cheese slice. I has a nice full mature cheddar flavour with the hot peppery kick of Tabasco.  The famous pepper sauce brand has teamed up with the Long Clawson Dairy a cheese maker with over 100 years of cheesemaking behind them. If I were to have a nice juicy homemade burger I would be more than happy to top it with a Tabasco cheese slice!

CHEESE OF THE DAY: REYPENAER

The good thing about writing a cheeseblog is that when friends go away rather than bringing back the usual tacky souvenir trinkets, my friends bring me cheese! So when my neighbour & good friend Yasmin went to Amsterdam she bought me back this particular tasty treat! Reypenaer is a strong, creamy, mature Gouda style cheese. According to the notes this cheese develops its creamy yet complex taste (with exeptional aroma) down to its unique ageing evironment. It is aged in a 100 year old warehouse in the green heart of Holland (Woerden). The cheeses are washed once a week by hand and a system if vents in the old warehouse keep the air fresh and create its own microclimate. The cheese has the crunchy crystalls that develop in a lot of quality mature cheeses, and the creamyness against its strong full flavour make this cheese a true Dutch delight! Anyone off to Holland should try to get themselves a piece.
Thanks Yasmin!

CHEESE OF THE DAY: WENSLEYDALE

Ooooooooh what a crackin piece of Wensleydale!!! pronounced Wallace from Wallace & Gromit fame. The Animated characters arent the only ones who enjoy this cheese - in an essay written by the author George Orwell entitled "In Defence of English Cooking", he rates Wensleydale second only to Stilton amongst British Cheeses.  It is a crumbly pale cheese with a fresh slightly lemony (it has a bit of acidity) flavour to it. Quite often Wensleydale will be made with fruit in it - Cranberry or Apricot seem to be the most common (the sweetness of the fruit is a good accompanyment to the sharpness of this cheese). But this delightful piece I had is just pure cheese & I have eaten most of this wedge in one sitting!!! Might save some for later - just hope I dont put on the Wrong Trousers.

CHEESE OF THE DAY: KILLEEN FARMHOUSE CHEESE WITH CUMIN

Another treat I picked up at the Great British Cheese Festival (http://themightycheeseboard.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-great-british-cheese-festival-2012.html) in Cardiff the other weekend was this Killeen Farmhouse Cheese with Cumin. Its was on the CAIS (the Association of Irish Cheesemakers) stand and made by Killeen Farmhouse Cheeses based in Ballinasloe, Co Galway in Ireland. The cheese they make is very much like a Dutch Cheese (the recipe based on a Gouda recipe), and this one in particular has all the flavour of a good mild Gouda with the added warmth from the Cumin seeds it is made with. An unusual combination, but one that suprisingly works very well without it just becoming a curry flavoured cheese. The cumin flavour comes through strongly, but works well with the Gouda style cheese - a lovely Irish cheese!
www.killeencheese.ie

CHEESE OF THE DAY: CERNEY PEPPER

After the excitement of the Great British Cheese Festival (see blog post for full write up: http://themightycheeseboard.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/the-great-british-cheese-festival-2012.html), I came home with lots of lovely British cheeses to try out and review for the Mighty Cheeseboard, so lets start with this Cotswolds soft (it is very soft hence the deformed piece above that lost some of its shape squashed into a bag full of cheese!) Goats Cheese. It is lovingly made entirely from hand, and from the milk of "loved, cared for and preferably named" local goats. Its soft and very creamy and the Carney pepper is rolled in a coarse rainbow peppermix, which gives the cheese a nice peppery kick & counterbalances its creamyness perfectly. An award winner and a true delight to eat - possibly the best soft goats cheese I've tasted!!!
www.cerneycheese.com

CHEESE OF THE DAY: MONTEREY JACK

Monterey Jack is a hard American cheese although like many unprotected cheeses - can be made anywhere in the world and still be called Monterey Jack (this is a Welsh piece of Monterey Jack). It is similar to cheddar - with its slighly rubbery solid texture like a mild cheddar, but with a richer flavour of a more mature cheddar (although it doesnt have that sharp zing of a strong mature cheddar). The cheese originates from the the Mexican Friars of Monterey, California in the 19th Century, but was first commercially produced by Californian businessman David Jack who called it Jack's Cheese before it eventually became known as Monterey Jack. Also it is apparently a very good cheese for migraiane sufferers! Dont get a headache get some Monterey Jack!

CHEESE OF THE DAY: COULOMMIERS

A French cheese, Coulommiers is the less well known cousin of Brie (despite being produced for longer). It does have many of the same characteristics of Brie - being soft, creamy & buttery, but this had a slightly more lively fruity flavour to it. This particular piece from Coeur de Lion came in an individual bitesise portion - nice cheese chomp on the move! Mmmmmmm.

CHEESE OF THE DAY DOUBLE BILL: MATURE CHEDDAR & RED LEICESTER

Today I tackle 2 of the big boys of British cheese - a Mature Cheddar & Rinded Red Leicester.

We'll start with the Cheddar - this particular piece is from Green's of Glastonbury and is described as a mature farmhouse cheddar "From the Land where Cheddar Began!" - its been matured for 12 months (the "Vintage" that Green's make is 15-18 months) - being the most popular cheese in the UK and the second most popular cheese in the USA - most people will know the taste of cheddar, but this one has a full flavour with bit of a tang and ever so slightly sweet. A very tasty mature cheddar!

On to the Red Leicester - for this one I purchased a Farmhouse Rinded Red Leicester described as mature, rich & nutty, it is made by our good friends at Butlers cheeses (see our review of their wonderful Blacksticks Blue: http://www.themightycheeseboard.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/cheese-of-day-butlers-blacksticks-blue.html). Another of the very popular cheeses in the UK, it is not dissimilar to Cheddar, but is more mellow in flavour with a slightly nutty aftertaste, and a very different colouring (a strong orange/red achieved by the addition of Annato during manufacture) - hence its name of Red Leicester.

Two classic cheeses - both full of flavour and very tasty - with fine examples such as these, I think they fully deserve their popularity in the world of cheese.

CHEESE OF THE DAY: JARLSBERG

Like the Swiss cheese Emmental and the Dutch Cheese Leerdammer, Jarlsberg (a Norweigan cheese) is characterised by its large holes and sweet, nutty flavour. The cheese has a yellow, shiny surface and is usually coated in a yellow wax. Originally originating from the County of Jarlsberg (hence the name) which is about 80km south of Oslo from around 1855. About 100 years later this cheese was researched and developed by the Agricultural University of Norway into the cheese we know now - commercial production of Jarlsberg began in 1960 & has remained a popular cheese eversince.