Cheese Pairings: Deconstructed dates with Gorgonzola Picante and Sugared Bacon

The Pairing: Gorgonzola Picante + Date puree with sugared bacon and marcona almonds

The Cheese: Gorgonzola (Cow, Italy)

Gorgonzola Picante is a blue cheese, of course, and falls on the spicier side of the blue cheese range. It is a DOC protected cheese, made in Lombardy, Italy. Picante is the spicy sister of the Gorgonzola Dolce, and has a sharp, spicy tang and a smooth texture and a slight sweetness, like you’d expect from a blue cheese. This is Italy’s answer to Roquefort.

The Accompaniment: Date puree with sugared bacon and marcona almonds

Date Puree

You will need:

• 1 1/2 cups pitted dates (14 ounces)
• 1/2 bottle dry red wine
• 1 (3- to 4-inch) cinnamon stick
• 1 whole star anise

1. Bring all ingredients to a simmer, in a 2-quart heavy saucepan over moderate heat, then reduce heat and simmer until dates are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove and discard spices.
2. Drain dates with a slotted spoon and discard skins.
3. Transfer dates and juice into a food processor until a puree is formed.

Sugared Bacon

You will need:

• Two slices of bacon (I used turkey bacon)
• Brown sugar to sprinkle

1. Sprinkle bacon with brown sugar
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
3. Bake bacon until it is slightly brown and sugar is caramelized
4. Chop into small pieces

To assemble:

1. Spread date puree on the cheese board. Prepare marcona almonds by chopping into small pieces.

2. Sprinkle with bacon pieces

3. Top with marcona almonds

Why This Pairing Works: So if you’ve been to a tapas place, you’ve likely had dates stuffed with blue cheese and an almond, and wrapped in bacon. Christina and I did these for a dinner party, and they were amazing. So I was thinking, why not deconstruct them and make the components into a spread? Same flavor profile, but enjoyed in a little different way. The sweetness of the date calms the spiciness of the blue cheese mold, as does the sugared bacon, which also gives it a savory flavor. The almonds give just the right amount of crunch.

Wine Reco: Cabernet Sauvignon or Muscato

Dinner Mixology

The Concept

As much as we love to cook and drink good wine, (often at the same time), we love to cook for others even more which is why we like to host dinner parties. Normally we choose a theme based around the food using a region or an ingredient as the star but this time the dinner had both a food theme and a social theme. The idea was simple: we invited one friend, who then invited another friend, and so on, until we had 10 people who all knew at least one other person, but didn’t necessarily know everyone else. Seemed like a great way for people to meet. So how to keep this all together? Good food and good drinks.

The Most Important Part: The Drinks (duh!)

We started with our Get-to-Know-You Sangria. We call it that because by the end of the night you’ve drunk so much that you feel very comfortable with everyone around you. So much so that you start belting out songs, terrible admissions about your co-workers and love everyone at the party. This drink has a multitude of different types of juices, liquors and of course, the standard fruit. Sweet and perfect.

Sangria. Yum!

Because the food theme was Spain, we asked everyone to bring a bottle of Spanish wine. What was interesting about this was that not everyone brought the typical, classic red Rioja. We had some white Riojas, some Albariños, and some wines that we quite honestly didn’t know if they really came from Spain. But we drank them all.

But admittedly, most of our wines were Riojas. Rioja is the Spanish wine most associated with Spain. Who hasn’t heard of the classic red Rioja? As a red wine, it isn’t too tannic, meaning it’s super-drinkable for even the most squeamish of red wine drinkers (read: Dana). What you may not know is that the wine is named after the region that it is made in, not the grape. This is similar to the Champagne region in France (Champagne is an area and style of wine, not a grape). La Rioja, the region in the north of Spain, is split into three regions – Alta, Alavesa and Baja. These regions all produce different types of wine. Riojas can be Tinto (red) or Blanco (white). Rioja is a DO (Denominación de Origen) protected wine, so it can only be made in that region, under specific regulations. Rioja is also typically oaked, so you get some interesting fragrances and tastes from it.

Side note: how can you tell that a wine is aged in oak? You can usually smell it. It smells kind of woody/vanilla-y. This is from the actual wood as well as the oxidation (exposure to the air through cracks in the wood).

The Food

We followed that with some amazing Spanish tapas (appetizers), among them super easy bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with almonds and blue cheese. When we say “easy,” we mean it. You literally take a bag of dates, pop some blue cheese (Spanish Valdeon is perfect for this) and a marcona almond in it, and then wrap it in some bacon (or turkey bacon, as we did). Keep these together with a toothpick. Put these on a cookie sheet and bake at 375º until the bacon looks crispy.

Dates with blue cheese, almonds and bacon

For the main course, we served a chicken cooked in Spanish sherry, Spanish paprika and garlic with parsley. Sherry is native to Spain and the word “Sherry” is actually the anglicized version of “Jerez,” the town from which it originates. We served this with a side of Macaroni and Cheese (so not Spanish), and a spinach salad with pepitas and cojita cheese. We’ll be posting these recipes in the coming week.

Chicken with paprika, sherry, parsley and garlic

The Table

We created a printed menu which was placed at each table setting and allowed the guests to know ahead of time what was being served. This helped build anticipation among the guests and hopefully provided a more enjoyable eating experience as the guests knew what ingredients were in each dish. The black and white table really allowed the food and wine to be the focal point, which they should always be. Instead of plating the meal we placed the entire dish of chicken and macaroni and cheese on the table and passed plates around. This allowed for a more communal experience and helped facilitate discussion (it also created some silliness and confusion!).

The place setting with menu

Conversations starters, etc.

If you feel your party has hit a snag, people seem bored or the conversation is waning, there are ways to spice things up and get people talking:

• Break out the karaoke machine! Come on, who doesn’t love to belt out some Journey or Bon Jovi songs? Some people need liquid courage to sing in front of a room full of people but once the singing starts everyone will want to join in.
• As host, you can bring two people together by letting them know about things they have in common.
• Use the food or wine to start a discussion about travel. People can share information about their favorite country or city they’ve visited.

Really, it’s not difficult. People will naturally mingle at parties and usually people who are painfully shy don’t go to dinner parties so. Every time we throw a party we’re nervous about whether the food will turn out right, if people will have fun, if it will be a “success.” And you know what? It always works out.

By the end of the night, everyone was giggly, stuffed full of food and wine and we had lots of cleaning up to do. That spelled success for us.

~Christina and Dana

If I have a penicillin allergy, should I stay away from blue cheese?

Okay so it’s been brought to my attention that some of you are nervous to try blue cheeses because you have a penicillin allergy. Penicillium Roqueforti is indeed the blue mold that gives blue cheese its signature look and taste.

And as much as I adore blue cheese, I know it is not fun to break out in hives. The week before my 600 person wedding, I broke out into hives all over my face. ALL over. Imagine having what looked like the pimples of a 12-year-old all over your face, and welts all over your body like someone beat the crap out of you. The week before your wedding.

I spent an ungodly amount of money trying to figure out what I was allergic to. Turns out, I was allergic to planning a 600 person wedding. The Thursday before the week of the wedding, I still had table assignments to do, the hotel had a “snafu” with my bridal suite (like there was none), and I had an emergency root canal. Point being, my brothers and sisters in hives, this is not a pretty situation.

So I am by no means a doctor, but I have done some research on this. It appears that the consensus is that an allergic reaction to this cheese is not likely. When penicillium is consumed in this way, it is less caustic for some reason. However, always err on the side of caution if you feel funny about it.

~ Dana

How to Identify Cheeses

Hint: this aint it...

Cheeses are split into different categories. As we walk through the types of cheese, you will learn to identify them easier. Many of the things that cheeses have in common make them easier to recognize and guess how a cheese will taste. It makes you seem so much smarter when talking about cheese. And beyond that, it helps you to really understand what kinds of cheeses you like. Do you despise sheep’s milk cheeses because you can’t stand the smell of wool sweaters in your cheese (or, as Christina says, the smell of a barnyard)? Or love, love, love bloomy rind cheeses, because of how runny they can get? Knowing how to identify these things will help you to identify your faves in the future.

Here are some general characteristics:

1. Milk Type:

Raw/Pasteurized: So when you think of pasteurization, you think of drinking milk, safety, killing of bacteria, etc. But for cheeses, that’s not always good. The natural bacteria in milk can help develop a flavor profile that is quite interesting. Cheese made of milk aged less than 60 days isn’t allowed to be imported into the US. So real brie (Brie de Meaux) isn’t allowed to be sold here. If someone told you they’ve had it here, the real deal, they’re lying. Pasteurization also kills nuances in milk, so the starting point is pretty much the same. You won’t be able to detect differences in season or fields. This could be good if you are looking for a cheese that is always the same. But not so good if you are looking for some type of variation and a changing flavor profile.

Sheep’s Milk: This is the fattiest milk. These cheeses tend to “glisten” with fat after they sit out a little while. These cheeses can have a sheep-y, barnyard, lanolin smell, so you can usually recognize them by their odor. The color is pure white. Random fact you should know? Sheep don’t produce a lot of milk. But what they do produce is closer to the state of cheese, so technically it takes less sheep’s milk to make cheese.  One famous sheep’s milk cheese? Roquefort.

Cow: This is one of the most common milks used, because cows produce so much milk. It can range from white-ish to ivory. The ivory characteristic is due to the ability of cows to extract beta carotene from the plants they eat.  Unlike sheep’s milk, cow’s milk has the most liquid per solids. So it takes a lot of cow’s milk to make the same amount of sheep’s milk.  Famous cow’s milk cheese? Pierre Robert.

Goat: This milk is pure white because goats don’t absorb beta carotene, which tints the color of milk. This milk has a recognizably tangy taste, especially in fresh goat cheese. Most people think of goat cheese as only the fresh chèvre, but there are so many, many more aged versions. Famous Goat Cheese? Selles-sur-Cher.

2. Style of Cheese:

Fresh/Soft: They have no real “rind.” These are cheeses that should be consumed sooner rather than later. They are not aged, and have higher liquid content (whey) Examples: chèvre (fresh goat cheese), ricotta, mascarpone

Semi-Soft: Usually rindless, with a little less moisture than the fresh/soft cheeses. Examples: Montery Jack, Colby

Soft-Ripened Cheese (a.k.a Bloomy Rind): These have a white moldy rind on the outside. The penicillium candidum mold is responsible for this, and it can be incorporated inside the cheese, as well as on the outside, by being mixed into the paste, or sprayed on the surface. Examples: Pierre Robert or Brie type cheese. This category also includes double and triple crèmes, where extra butterfat is added into the cheese to make it creamier. Yum. It’s like butta baby….

Washed rind: A.K.A. Stinky Cheeses:  They stink. Literally. They are typically washed in some sort of salt and bacteria mixture to prevent molds from growing on their outsides. In doing this, however, it encourages brevibacterium linens (b.linens bacteria), which can produce some very fragrant aromas. Their bark is usually worse than their bite, in that the taste can be quite mild. These cheeses were the specialty of monks, who cared for these cheeses while abstaining from meat. Interestingly, these cheeses can smell a lot like meat. Those monks, smarter than they looked. Examples: Tallegio, Grayson.

Semi-Hard: These cheeses have less moisture than semi-soft cheese. Many times the curds are cooked, salted or cheddared to remove even more moisture (whey). They are typically aged for longer to take even more moisture out of the cheese. These can tend to be more salty, and deliciously nutty. Examples: Gruyère, Swiss

Hard: These are aged even longer than the semi-hard cheeses listed above. They can tend to be well, hard. They are usually crumbly, because there is so little moisture left in them. Ever tasted that crystalline crunch in a cheese? That caramel-y flavor? Sign of crystallized proteins in the cheese. Examples: Aged Gouda, Ricotta Salata, Parmagiano-Reggiano

Blue: OK, duh, they have blue or green molds growing in them (Penicillium Roqueforti molds). This isn’t a type of rind, per se, but more a type of cheese. Blue cheese can have rinds, like in the case of Valençay, or none, like Maytag. Examples: Roquefort, Maytag, Valdeón

Side Note: Natural rinds are rinds that are aged without assistance from washing, foil or other aids.

3. Age:

Cheeses can be aged from a few days to years. Flavors change over time, and texture can indicate a lot about age. The younger a cheese, the more water it contains, so the more soft and moist it will be. The more aged a cheese becomes, the more likely the nutty, caramel flavors are to come out.

These factors should serve as a guide to recognizing your cheese. Kind of like “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints,” but without the crazy subway scene (That’s my train, by the way!!). And unfortunately, without Channing Tatum as well….

~Dana