One of our favorite cheese experiences is truffle cheese. It provides all the pleasure of a shaved truffles dish at a fraction of the price. The cheese makers use bits and pieces that have fallen off the precious truffles during handling.

Truffle cheeses are typically made from a blend of cow’s milk and sheep’s milk or cow’s milk and goat’s milk. One of our favorites is made from only goat’s milk. Any truffle lover who tries these cheeses gets hooked.

If you can’t find the cheeses locally, you can get excellent-quality varieties from iGourmet.com, which sells individual cheeses plus a truffle cheese assortment.

Here are two we’ve been enjoying recently.

TRUFFLE TREMOR

Bloomy-rinded, semisoft Truffle Tremor, from California’s Cypress Grove Chevre, is imbued with truffle aroma and flavor, dotted with black Italian summer truffles (Tuber aestivum Vittadini) truffles throughout. Elegant and sophisticated, it is a luxurious table cheese.

Among its many awards over the years are First Place at the American Cheese Society Awards in 2014, First Place at the 2014 World Championship Cheese Contest and the Super Gold at the 2014 World Cheese Awards.

It’s a perfect marriage of ripened goat cheese and truffles, delivering floral, herb and mushroom notes. Made 200 miles north of San Francisco, it’s an earth-shaking masterpiece.

A slice of heaven: Truffle Tremor. Photo courtesy Cypress Grove Chevre.

It’s available at many fine cheese stores, and online at CypressGroveChevre.com.

For Mother’s Day or other special dinner, we like to serve a slice of the cheese with a green salad (lightly tossed in vinaigrette), or with sweet accompaniments. For a Truffle Tremor dessert plate, for every eight ounces of cheese serve:

 
Or, a simple drizzle of honey (how about truffle honey!) with slices of baguette will do nicely.
 
Note For Connoisseurs

Truffleur is another great, semisoft American truffle cheese, produced by Tumalo Farms in Oregon. This is another goat cheese, infused with native Oregon white truffles, then aged three to four months.

It’s rare to find a white truffle cheese. The flavor and aroma are distinctively different from black truffles. Because the cheese is relatively mild, the truffle flavor really comes through at the finish—wonderful! Since it is made with the local truffle harvest, this cheese is seasonal, usually available only December through February. So mark your calendar.

Semihard, in addition to the cheese plate it can be used to make a spectacular mac and cheese, or to melt atop a burger.

FROMAGER D’AFFINOIS

From France, this variety of fromager d’affinois, a Brie-like double-crème cow’s milk cheese, is a beautiful blend of the creamy cheese with the subtle earthiness of the truffles.

The black truffles are from Périgord—the best truffles in the world. It is a seasonal product that is in store for the holidays from October to January and then again in March through May.

You can find it now in most gourmet/specialty stores, Whole Foods Markets, Trader Joe’s (as a unit size under their label called the Truffle Brie) and some Costco stores. Learn more at FromagerDAffinois.com.
 
HOW TO CARE FOR YOUR CHEESE

These tips should be followed with all fine cheese:

Forget the plastic wrap: Re-wrapping soft-ripened cheese in wax paper or parchment paper will allow the cheese to breath as it continues to ripen.

Keep the cheese cold (33°-35°F) and remove from the fridge at least one hour before serving.

BEER WINE PAIRINGS WITH TRUFFLE CHEESE

These are the favorite pairings from the folks at Cypress Grove Chevre:

Beers

 
White Wines

 
Red Wines

 
Dessert Wines

 
ALL ABOUT TRUFFLES

Check out our comprehensive article and glossary of the different truffle types.

Meatballs in Chipotle Chile Sauce with Wisconsin Queso Fresco Cheese. Make them small for an appetizer, or bigger for a main course. Serve them with rice and pinto or black beans; or make a Cinco de Mayo meatball sub.

This recipe serves four 4 as main course, 10-12 as appetizers.

RECIPE: MEATBALLS IN CHIPOTLE CHILE SAUCE

Ingredients

For The Meatballs

Chipotle meatballs. Photo courtesy WisDairy.com.

 
For The Sauce

Preparation

1. COMBINE the meatball ingredients in bowl, using your hands. Refrigerate for one hour.

2. SHAPE the meatballs in the desired size: larger for main course, smaller for appetizer.

3. MAKE the sauce: Add the cinnamon to the chile salsa. Heat oil until quite hot (but not smoking) in a heavy, deep skillet. Add the salsa and “fry” until thick (it will splatter; consider a splatter screen).

4. ADD the broth and bring to boil. Stir in the mint. Add the meatballs. Simmer for 30 minutes, or until meatballs are done.

5. GARNISH each serving with crumbled queso fresco, cilantro and additional mint, asdesired.
 
WHAT IS QUESO FRESCO

Queso fresco is one of the most commonly-used cheeses for cooking in Latin America. It’s a soft, mild cheese similar to ricotta in that it’s made from curds. Cultures and rennet are added to pasteurized milk to create the curds, which are scooped into molds, then drained briefly.

Queso fresco is most often used crumbled, as a topping for everything from salads to soups to enchiladas, and is melted in quesadillas and casseroles.

Queso fresco should not be confused with queso blanco fresco, although the latter is similar. Queso blanco fresco is a fresh cheese that is made by direct acidification (not cultures and rennet) and pressed into blocks. It consequently has a firm texture and softens but does not melt: It can be sliced for pan-frying.

The different types of Hispanic cheeses.

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