Friday 28 November 2008

Cheese glorious cheese

My second blog is again food based, Seffers and I have decided to add a third circuit to our daily cycle of the walls as the battle with the bulge seems to failing. We can't seem to get enough of the food here, and as our confidence with the language grows so does our confidence in helping ourselves to the free bar snacks served at every bar after 6.00pm!

The theme of this blog is CHEESE (sorry Charlie and Graham).

Along with the weekly purchase of mozzarella we add a renegade cheese to our shopping basket, these are the one's which we have tried so far, and our thoughts on them.

Tomino Del Boscaiolo – €1.52
We're not sure if this is related to the French cheese, Savoie du Tomme (which is delicious) but this is different, it came in a pack of 2 small rounds, and has the texture of a firm brie, it doesn't seem to ripen. It is creamy in taste, and has a slight goats cheese tang to it, but is made with cows (or Mucca) milk.

Mascarpone
This is one of the main ingredients of Tiramisu in which it is delicious, and in the interests of this blog I've tried a spoon of it on it's own. Yum Yum, a cross between clotted cream and cream cheese!

Mozzarella – from €0.35
I don't know about anyone else, but whenever I have it at home I find it a bit bland and tasteless. It could be the fact that we're in Italy but I swear it tastes better here! We've been eating as part of the classic Caprese Insalata (Pomodorro, Mozzarella, Basilico, Olio Extra Virgine d'Oliva e pepe), and we've not even tried the buffalo mozzarella yet!

Grana Padano – €3.50
I keep trying to buy Parmigiano Reggiano, but the Seffalice is on a budget, and I keep getting swayed by firstly the price of Grana Padano or picking it up by mistake as they are shelved close to each other. Grana Padano is delicious, either grated on your pasta, or by slice. If we ever manage to purchase Parmigiano I'll do a comparison.

Pecorino Romano
One half of the Seffalice is not so keen on this one as it is very salty, however the other half finds it delicious and salty, but then he does like the salt.

Soft Pecorino
Pecorino is one of the many Tuscan specialities, and they do all sorts of varieties. We found one in the market which was soft and runny like a ripe camembert, with a very creamy and delicate taste and texture, we thoroughly enjoyed it, we have not been able to find it or any other sort of soft pecorino since.

Bra Topana (or something similar)
A hard cheese, can't remember too much about it, but we liked it, because it was cheese and the older it got the cheesier it got.

More cheese reviews to follow as and when we try them



Tiramisu 2
I made my second Tiramisu, tweaking with Valentina's original recipe. It was bigger, boozier and better. It seems that when it comes to Tiramisu size matters, and using more ingredients and putting it in a bigger dish improves it – poor Seffalice has to eat a Tiramisu for 6 now (I think we're going to be looking at 4 circuits of the wall fairly shortly). I've ignored her quantites for coffee and booze and now just add a lot, this seems to work, I will keep testing to see whether one can add too much.

4 comments:

Charlie said...

I can't believe you put The Pope in your Caprese salad.

Seffalice said...

Il papa ama il pepe.

Heather and Stoods said...

yeay - my favourite post ever thank you ....
pls provide details of where to send donations for the research project - i need to know about the Parmigiano Reggiano.....xx

Graham said...

We've started a sweepstake on how many wall circuits the Seffalice will be making on a daily basis come the end of January. I've also found a recipe to make the Bonjour biscuits for tiramisu, however my oven isn't large enough to fit the antique dish in. I'll have to buy a bigger oven.