We hear quite a few people say that they don’t like goat cheese. While taste is a very personal thing, goat cheese is our favorite.
If you think you don’t like goat cheese, try one of the fresh chèvre, the French word for goat cheese (pronounced SHEVr with a guttural R at the end). It’s like soft cream cheese with a tang. The stronger flavors develop as a goat cheese is aged.
Goat cheese adds a touch of sophistication to whatever it graces. Here are just a few things you can do with a log of goat cheese:
As a canapé or tea-time treat, make apricot “sandwiches,” filling two dried apricot halves with goat cheese. You can also stuff dates with goat cheese, and garnish both recipes with chopped pistachios or walnuts.
Toss crumbled goat cheese on pasta and pizza.
Add it to salads, either crumbled or as a sliced disk (circle) with baby lettuces and a large crouton (made from a sliced and toasted baguette).
One of our favorite salad recipes: goat cheese, beets and mesclun, garnished with toasted walnuts and dressed with a walnut oil vinaigrette.
Serve it as a cheese course: a disk on a plate with fresh or dried fruit slices, nuts and a garnish of small greens (such as baby arugula and watercress). No bread or crackers are needed, but you can serve them.
Spread it on a bagel, top a burger, make a goat cheese BLT—the options are many.
To bake goat cheese disks for a warm goat cheese salad:
1. Cut a log into inch-thick disks and place in a shallow container in one layer.
2. Sprinkle with chopped thyme, rosemary or other favorite fresh herbs and add extra-virgin olive oil to marinate.
3. Cover and chill 12 hours or overnight.
4. Before baking, pop into the freezer for 1 hour.
5. Remove disks from marinade and roll completely in panko, Japanese breadcrumbs. Press gently so the crumbs adhere.
6. Place on a large baking sheet and bake in a 400° oven until golden, about 15 minutes. Flip halfway through.
7. To make croutons, add baguette slices to oven for the last 5 minutes of baking.
If you’re feeling more ambitious we highly recommend goat cheese tarts as a first course, and goat cheese ravioli.
Like other white breads, sourdough bread is made with processed white flour, stripped of nutrients. But it contains beneficial lactic acid.
The starter contains bacteria, lactobacilli, that create lactic acid. In turn, the lactic acid creates the slightly acidic signature flavor of sourdough.
Get to know the world’s best white
chocolate. Photo by Claire Freierman |
THE NIBBLE.
Yesterday was National White Chocolate Day. Many people, including professionals, perpetuate the old news that “white chocolate isn’t real chocolate.”
But it is!
White chocolate was once not classified as chocolate by the FDA, because it has no cocoa solids (which make chocolate brown). That’s changed.
In 2002 the FDA agreed that the cocoa butter qualified it as true chocolate, and classified this ivory delight as chocolate. The other components are milk, sweetener such as sugar, vanilla and a drop of lecithin as an emulsifier.
White chocolate used to be classified with the chalk-white product called “confectionary coating.” This product, which is made with cheaper vegetable oil, milk and sugar, has no relation to chocolate (and in our opinion, doesn’t taste so terrific—if you think you don’t like white chocolate, you may have been eating confectionary coating.)
If you’re zesting lemons, limes, oranges or other citrus for a recipe, buy organic fruit if you can.
Conventional citrus crops are heavily sprayed with pesticides, and a simple rinse won’t dislodge all of it from the nooks and crannies of the rind.
The zest is the outermost part of the rind of citrus fruits (the white part underneath is called the pith). It has both a strong citrus flavor and intense, perfume-like aromatic oils.
To zest a citrus fruit:
If you’re handy with a knife, peel the zest from the rind with a sharp paring knife; or use a vegetable peelere. Then use a chef’s knife to cut it into julienne strips.
The less handy can use a special utensil called a zester.
They may look pretty, but they’re covered in pesticide. Photo courtesy SXC.
If you need grated zest, simply use your hand-held grater and grate gently, avoiding the pith. A microplane makes this easy.
If you can’t get organic lemons and limes and don’t have a spray bottle of fruit and vegetable wash, take a kitchen brush and scrub the citrus thoroughly. You can use a bit of soap, as it washes off easily.
See the different types of lemons in our Lemon Glossary.
See the different types of limes in our Lime Glossary.
