Here's a test for you. Which of the two photos below is my Gruyere/Emmental (see my blog post in April when I made it and mixed up the pressing regime) and which is the photo from the Artisan Cheese Making book? Can't tell the difference?. Imagine my surprise when I cut open my 6 month old block of Gremmental the other day and it had the right kind of holes in the middle. Not only that, it even tasted like a Swiss cheese. I also gave a piece to Max to taste, not telling him what it was, and he identified a Swiss cheese flavour. Amazing. I was fully expecting a failure as I have heard that Swiss cheese is notoriously difficult to make. It had cracked badly during the early maturing process and a bit of mould had grown in the cracks under the wax which was why I was cutting it open the other day.
Glad all that hard work paid off!
Over the past couple of weekends, I have been madly preparing the vegetable garden for the spring summer plantings. So far I have planted carrots, parsnip, spinach,corn, kale, bok choy, silver beet, beetroot, lettuce, broccoli, fennel, snow peas and climbing beans. All my frost tender plants are still growing under cover to protect them from the sometimes still chilly mornings (like the frost today). Have to wait another 3 weeks before it is safe to plant them here.....but the ground is already dug over and ready to go.
And just for the record, the first photo is my cheese.
2 comments:
Well done! A very convincing test. I just had a disaster with Stilton, which grew some strange looking moulds on the outside and went kind of camembert-gooey. I tasted the inside tentatively. It tasted strongly of blue cheese...dilemma. To be on the safe side, I chucked it.
Very impressive. You'll have Mathew the Gourmet Farmer visiting you soon!
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