[Sca-cooks] Savoury Tosted Cheese Goo

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Ysabeau:
>I'm working on my entry in a Savoury Tosted Cheese Goo competition. (NO
>PEEKING, Stefan!).
>
>I am trying to find a "different" combination of cheeses. I have the basics
>of what I want to do and it tastes good, but the consistency is a bit off.
>
>I tried using Queso Fresco and Neuchatel I got at the local farmers market
>for the cheeses and I think the Queso Fresco is what gave it the grainy
>texture. It tastes yummy but the texture is a bit grainy. My reasoning for
>the Queso Fresco is because I thought it would be closer to period cheeses
>than anything I can buy in the grocery store. It is very fresh and has no
>preservatives. If you don't know Queso Fresco, it is a bit crumbly and melts
>well. It has a very mild flavor. I guess we can't really know for sure how
>it was in period, but the cheese goos I've had in the past were more creamy.
>
>The challenge is to come up with a new perspective of Digbie's recipe.
>"Anyone using Cariadoc's redaction will be smeared with their own cheese
>goo." (Unless you are Cariadoc, of course.) I'm really new at redacting
>recipes and purposely did not go look at Cariadoc's recipe before starting
>this. I'll post my recipe afterward for comments and feedback...for now I
>don't want to give away any secrets ~grin~.
>
>So any alternate cheese suggestions? I was thinking maybe fontina? Or
>gruyere?

Well, it's an English dish (actually an English dish emulating a 
Welsh tradition), and about cheeses, it specifically instructs the 
cook to use "quick, fat, rich, well tasted cheese, (as the best of 
Brye, cheshire, &c, or sharp thick cream cheese). I think the use of 
cream cheese probably started just as a misunderstanding of that last 
term, which refers to a cheese made from cream, and not that 
gum-emulsified Philly stuff.

As for what cheese to use, I'd be mostly concerned with finding a 
cheese that didn't harden too dramatically as it cools, at least not 
when mixed with butter and such. Maybe a mixture from among the 
cheeses likely to have been known to Digby... my experience with 
Cheshire is that it has a slight graininess when melted (more so than 
farmhouse Cheddar). As for Fontina or Gruyere, they'd do the job, but 
probably aren't something Digby would have experienced. Hmmm... 
There's always Parmigiano-Reggiano mixed with a full-cream cheese...

Adamantius

-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
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Holt, 07/29/04