CHEESE, CONTINUED

 

Cheese board with Cabrales, a blue-veined cheese from Asturias. With bubbly cider, white wine and dry Sherry.

I wrote last week about an unusual cheese, Torta del Casar from Extremadura. I’ve got another cheese up my sleeve, so to speak, also purchased at the Feria Nacional de Queso in Trujillo. This one, Cabrales, comes from northern, green Spain, the Principado de Asturias.

Cabrales is the name of the region where the cheese is made, specified on the label as a protected denomination of origin. It can officially be made with cow’s milk or with a mixture of cow, goat and sheep milk. The cheese is matured in mountain caves where the Penicillium mold causes it to form blue-green veins throughout. Its aroma is intense, the texture is creamy, buttery. The flavor of Cabrales is salty, mildly acidic, somewhat piquant. 

Cabrales cheese can be served as an appetizer or dessert cheese accompanied by bread, crackers or toasts and fresh or dried fruits. It also lends itself well to combining with other ingredients for sauces or for embellishing variations on pizza or quiche. 

Creamy Cabrales sauce tops a burger with grilled mushrooms and sautéed piquillo peppers.

Cabrales sauce makes an interesting change for pasta with broccoli.

Cabrales whipped with yogurt for a tasty dip or dressing.

Slivers of Cabrales top a salad with pears, endive, and almonds. Serve the dressing separatley.

Burgers with Cabrales Blue Cheese Sauce

Burguer con Salsa Cabrales

Vegetarians can forgo the meat burger and pile the grilled mushrooms on buns with the piquillos and Cabrales sauce. 

Toasted buns

Grilled burgers

Oyster mushrooms grilled with garlic

Sautéd piquillo peppers and onions with red pepper flakes

Cabrales blue cheese sauce (recipe below)

Place mushrooms on buns and top with the sautéd piquillo peppers. Place a burger on the stack and spoon warm Cabrales sauce on the meat. (The burgers pictured are made with ground chicken thighs.)

Fettuccine with Broccoli and Cabrales Blue Cheese Sauce 

Pasta con Brócoli y Salsa Cabrales

Make this vegetarian by omitting the bacon.

Serves 4. 

8 ounces fettuccine noodles

Salt

2 cups broccoli florets

3 tablespoons olive oil

½ cup diced bacon

2 cloves sliced garlic

1 cup Cabrales blue cheese sauce (recipe follows)

Grating of fresh nutmeg

Freshly ground black pepper

Chopped chives

Cook the noodles in boiling salted water according to package directions. Reserve 1 cup of the pasta cooking water. Drain the pasta.

Blanch the broccoli florets in boiling water 1 minute. Drain and reserve.

Heat the oil in a large skillet with the bacon and garlic. When garlic starts to turn golden, add the broccoli and fry a few minutes. Stir in the Cabrales sauce. Season with nutmeg and pepper. Add salt to taste. Add the reserved pasta cooking water and heat. Add the cooked noodles and mix them well with the sauce. Serve garnished with chopped chives. 

Cabrales Blue Cheese Sauce 

Salsa de Queso Cabrales

Cabrales sauce is classic with entrecôte steak, but it’s also good with hamburgers, baked potato, or pasta. The cheese cooks with cream, making it quite rich and also tempering the greenish color of the mashed cheese. Season the sauce with any favorite herbs. Salt may not be needed at all. For a very thick sauce, let it cook slowly until reduced by half. 

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons finely chopped shallots

6 ounces Cabrales blue cheese (about 1 cup)

½ cup cider, white wine or Sherry

Pinch of rosemary or thyme

Freshly ground black pepper

1 cup cream

Heat the oil on medium and poach the shallots until softened, 5 minutes. Do not let them brown. Break up the cheese and mash it in the pan with the shallots. Add the cider and cook, stirring, until the cheese is melted. Add the rosemary, pepper, and cream and cook on medium until the sauce is reduced by almost half, 15 to 20 minutes. 

Serve the sauce hot, warm, or room temperature. Store it covered and chilled.

Salad with Pears, Endive, and Cabrales Blue Cheese

Ensalada de Pera con Endibia y Cabrales

Serves 4

2 ounces Cabrales cheese

2 ripe, firm pears

3-4 Belgian endives

1 tablespoon Sherry vinegar

4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

½ cup slivered red bell pepper

4 tablespoons toasted hazelnuts or almonds

Chopped chives to garnish

Cabrales Blue Cheese Dressing to accompany (recipe follows)

While cheese is still cold and firm, cut it into shards and let them come to room temperature.

Peel the pears, cut them in half, and remove cores. Slice them lengthwise. Chop or shred the endive leaves and divide them between 4 salad plates. Arrange the sliced pears on top. Scatter the red pepper and hazelnuts over the salads.

Whisk together the vinegar and oil and drizzle them over the salads. Divide the shards of Cabrales on top. Garnish with chives. Serve the salads accompanied by the Cabrales Blue Cheese dressing.

Cabrales Blue Cheese Dressing

Aliño con Cabrales

This non-cooked sauce makes a great dip with chips or vegetable dippers. Use it as a salad dressing as well. 

¼ cup chopped scallions

½ cup Greek yogurt

4 ounces Cabrales cheese

1 tablespoon dry Sherry

1/8 teaspoon cumin seeds

1/8 pimentón picante de la Vera (smoked hot paprika) or cayenne

Combine all the ingredients in a mini-processor. Process until smooth. 

What to drink with Cabrales cheese? I asked Gerry Dawes, an expert on Spanish wines who knows his way around the cheeses of Asturia. 

"In Asturias, they drink cider, which goes very well with Cabrales.  White wines with good acidity to cut through the creaminess, richness and mold of Cabrales would be Albariño, but especially wines from Ribeiro.  Just like Sauternes with Roquefort, sweet wines are great.  Late-harvest Moscateles from Navarra, sweet Malvasias from the Canarias, Torres San Valentin semi-dulce from Penedès.   Also rosados from Navarra, which have good acidity and, of course, Cava, even the semi-dulce, though Brut Nature Cava will also be a good counterpoint.   The great sherries, from Manzanilla to Tio Pepe to the Palo Cortados and Olorosos.  I would also drink the excellent cream Sherries and Moscatel de Chipiona with Cabrales.” Thanks, Gerry, that’s a wide choice. And not a single red wine! 

(Photo:Gerry Dawes presenting Asturian cheeses at Alimentaria, Barcelona, 2010.) 

Gerry is the author of Sunset in a Glass, a collection of stories about life, food, wine and people in Spain.

Cabrales has its own cheese festival, the Certamen del Queso de Cabrales, in Arenas de Cabrales, Asturias, the last Sunday of August.

 More about Spanish cheeses:

Torta del Casar, Extremadura.

Málaga goat cheese.

Garrotxa cheese, Cataluña.

Manchego cheese.

How cheese is made.

A HOLIDAY MEAL WITH SPANISH FLAVORS

Crunchy sesame-wheat crisps with blue cheese dip.

Got your Thanksgiving menu figured out? This year I have guests who are vegetarian, so I’m not serving turkey. (Have you noticed that vegetarian is the trend this year?)

Most of the dishes will be classic North American (minus fresh cranberries, which I cannot find in Spain). Sweet potato “soufflé,” roasted Brussels sprouts and little onions; chestnut stuffing; apple pie. But, I couldn’t prepare a holiday meal without a little Spanish flavor.

If Thursday is a sunny day, the starter will probably be a Spanish-inflected salad with jewel-like pomegranate and clementines picked from my own tree. If it’s rainy and chill (like today), I’ll opt for a soup, perhaps pumpkin (prepared with oregano and a touch of vinegar, as in this recipe).

Crispy crackers with sesame and olive oil.

For sure, I’ll serve fino Sherry or Montilla-Moriles as an aperitif, along with my home-cured manzanilla olives. And, I’ve just made a batch of regañás, sesame-wheat crisp crackers, to serve with Cabrales blue cheese dip.

Regañás
Sesame-Wheat Crisps

These crispy crackers, popular at tapa bars in Sevilla and Cádiz, are seriously addictive! They’re good all by themselves or as dippers for sauces. They keep well stored in an air-tight container.

In Spain, I can buy regañás in packets. But they are ever-so-easy to make. Get the kids to knead the dough and roll them out. Because the crackers keep well, you can make them days before the holiday.

Roll the dough as thinly as possible. After rolling it out and cutting, pop the trays right in a preheated oven. If you leave them to set, the dough will rise again and the crackers will not be so crisp.

Makes about 200 small crackers.

1 teaspoon active dry yeast
½ teaspoon sugar
1 cup + 1 tablespoon hot water, divided
1 ¾ cups whole wheat flour
2 ¼ cup plain flour plus additional for rolling out dough
2 teaspoons salt
4 tablespoons sesame seeds
Pinch of dried thyme or rosemary (optional)
2 tablespoons olive oil plus additional to oil bowl

Combine the yeast and sugar in a small bowl. Add 4 tablespoons of the hot water and stir to dissolve. Allow to stand until bubbly.

Combine the two kinds of flour in a bowl with the salt , sesame seeds and herbs, if using. Make a well in the center and add the yeast, oil and remaining hot water. Use a wooden spoon to mix the dry ingredients with the wet.

Dough starts out really rough and shaggy.

Turn out on a board and knead the dough. It will be rough and shaggy at first and gradually become smooth and glossy, about 4 minutes.

Clean out the mixing bowl and oil it generously. Gather the dough into a ball and turn it in the bowl to coat with oil. Cover with a damp cloth and place in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about two hours.

Preheat oven to 425ºF.

Punch down the dough. Divide it in four pieces. Place one piece on a lightly floured board. Roll it out very thinly into a roughly rectangular shape. Transfer the dough to a baking sheet. Prick the dough all over with a fork. With a pastry wheel or sharp knife, cut the dough into strips 1 inch wide. Cut the strips crosswise into 2 inch- pieces.

Bake the strips until browned on the edges, 10 to 12 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough, rolling out, placing on baking sheet, cutting.

Allow the crisps to cool completely before storing in an air-tight container.

Salsa Cabrales
Cabrales Blue Cheese Sauce

Cabrales cheese.

Cabrales is a distinctive blue cheese from Asturias—sharp, but remarkably creamy in consistency. It makes a delightful dressing or dip when thinned with wine or, in the Asturian style, dry cider. Serve the sauce with endive leaves for dipping; with charcoal-grilled steaks or spooned  over a salad of frisée, sliced pears and toasted almonds. Other blue cheese can be substituted.

Makes  2/3 cup of sauce.

5 oz Cabrales (Asturian) blue cheese
2 tablespoons chopped onions
¼ cup white wine, cider, cava (sparkling wine) or dry Sherry
Pinch of cumin seed
Smoked pimentón (paprika) as garnish

Place the cheese in a blender or mini processor with onions, wine and cumin seed. Blend until smooth. Serve immediately or keep, covered and refrigerated, up to 3 days. Serve garnished with a pinch of pimentón.

Endive with Cabrales blue cheese dip.