Pecora Dairy 'Mezza'

Semi-hard
Ewe's milk (East Friesian)
Southern Highlands
random weight wedges
8 weeks-8 months maturation
www.pecoradairy.com.au

Most wine-lovers are prepared to pay more for an aged bottle of wine, but would the average cheese-lover fork out a few extra dollars for a matured cheese?

It's a dilemma many small cheesemakers face - how to balance cash-flow with a desire to produce cheeses that require maturation of more than a few weeks. Think of it this way - every 1kg of cheese sitting quietly in a cheese maturation cellar represents around 10 litres of milk that the cheesemaker has not yet made any return on.

Pecora Dairy 'Mezza'

At peak maturity of 8 or 9 months, Pecora Dairy's "Mezza" has all the richness, complexity and elegance of the best Basque-style cheeses, the best-known of which is Ossau-Iraty.

It's a shame, then, that most of the "Mezza" sold is barely a few months old. The younger version is a very pleasant cheese with clean, fresh flavours, but the aged version fills the mouth with toasted nuts and caramel and lingers with a hint of lanolin on the finish. And there's something magical about the very fine-grained texture, which is smooth and dense and utterly scoffable.

(Scoffable, by the way, is not a technical term, and unlikely to have been used by any of the judges who recently awarded Mezza a gold medal at the Sydney Royal Cheese Show.)

So my plea is two-fold: please, wonderful cheesemakers, have the confidence and patience to give your beautiful cheeses the time they deserve to fully develop their potential. And please, dear consumers, reward their efforts by paying a little bit more for these cheeses that are aged to perfection.

Small Cow Farm 'Redella'

Washed Rind
Cow's milk
Southern Highlands
180g round
4-6 weeks maturation
www.smallcowfarm.com

Your idea of a luscious red might be a fruity red wine, or a bunch of ripe cherries, but mine is a gooey washed rind cheese. Like human red-heads, these sticky, stinky cheeses are actually orange, and are renowned for their bold personalities.


Small Cow Farm
'Redella'

For a mild introduction to the world of smelly cheese, try the latest addition to the Small Cow Farm range. Named 'Redella', it has the same smooth texture as their 'PetitVache' range, and the faint pungent aroma you would expect of a washed rind cheese.

'Redella' is intentionally mild, as it's based on a French cheese called 'Langres'. The French original is often served with Champagne poured over the top, which adds a little boost of flavour, but for my money, 'Redella' wins in the flavour stakes.

I'm also a fan of the packaging, a very French-style miniature wooden box, which prevents the soft, gooey cheese from spilling lava-like from the wrapper. It's unique in the Australia cheese-scape, and perfectly fits in with cheese-maker Mark Williams' aim to produce cheeses that are "special and different".

Highland Organics 'Fresco Pecorino' & 'Grana Pecorino'

Semi-hard / Hard
Cow's milk
Southern Highlands
random weight portions (approx 150g)
3 weeks / 3 months maturation
www.highlandorganics.com.au

If you haven't tried Highland Organics cheeses for a while, they're worth another look. Cheesemaker David Snibson took over as production manager in January 2012, and the range has expanded to include new cheese styles as well as unhomogenised milk and yoghurt.

David has changed more than just the packaging, and the cheeses are now of a higher and more consistent quality.

Highland Organics 'Fresco Pecorino'
(old packaging)

The 'Fresco Pecorino' is part of the original range, and is exactly as described on the package: a soft cooking cheese. So it's perfect for things like eggplant parmigiana, toasted panini and good old mac 'n' cheese.

Matured for just a few weeks ("fresco" is the Italian word for "fresh"), it has a supple, meltable texture and mild cheesey flavour, making it a great kitchen staple.

The 'Grana Pecorino' is one of David's new additions. It's essentially a matured version of the 'Fresco', with the recipe tweeked slightly to produce a drier cheese more suited to longer maturation.


Highland Organics 'Grana Pecorino'
(new packaging)

'Grana' is a hard grating cheese, in the style of Italian Parmesan, making it another great everyday cheese to have in your fridge. While David would like to be able to mature it for up to nine months, most of it is packaged for sale at three months maturation, to meet customer demand.

At three months, it has a wonderfully flakey texture and rich, savoury flavour, which makes my cheesey heart sing, as there are so few decent hard cheeses being made in NSW.

I just have one small gripe: if your cheese isn't made from sheep's milk, please don't call it 'Pecorino'. The names 'Fresco' and 'Grana' accurately describe these cheeses - and they emulate those Italian originals very well - so perhaps the 'Pecorino' part could simply be dropped.


Little Creek Cheese 'BBQ Cheese'

Haloumi-style
Cow's milk
Central Coast
Approx. 200g random weight packs
www.littlecreekcheese.com.au

Summer may have ended, but it's never too late to throw another piece of cheese on the barbie.

I discovered this appropriately-named "BBQ cheese" (aka haloumi) while judging at this year's Sydney Royal Cheese Show. It was the only gold-medal cheese in the Haloumi class, and I was delighted when I found out it came from this small producer on the Central Coast.

Little Creek 'BBQ Cheese'

The Little Creek Cheese team consists of Russell & Sue Parsons, and Sue's son Alex Nelson, and they've been making cheese in the old Wyong milk factory for almost two years. Milk comes from the Riverina co-op and the cheeses are sold at the factory and various farmers' markets on the Central Coast.

So what makes a gold-medal-winning haloumi? When seared in a hot pan (we don't use oil when judging), the surface should caramelise evenly, and the inside should soften without running too much. The texture shouldn't be tough or chewy, and the salt shouldn't overpower the fresh, milky flavours.

Little Creek's excellent example ticks all of those boxes, and comes with a catchy name too. After all, isn't it what most of us do with haloumi?

Binnorie Dairy Marinated Goat Fetta

Fresh (Marinated Fetta-style)
Goat's milk
Hunter Valley
300g jars & 1.5kg buckets
www.binnorie.com.au

This goat's milk version of Binnorie Dairy's flagship Marinated Fetta is an excellent example of the "Persian Fetta" style - creamy and spreadable, rather than firm and 'slice-able' like traditional Greek Feta*.

Binnorie Dairy
Marinated Goat Fetta

Made from locally-sourced goat's milk, large chunks of the cheese are marinated in Binnorie's blend of canola & olive oils with fresh herbs. The thing I like most about it is the balance of flavouring, just the right amount of pepper, fresh thyme and not too much garlic! So many cheeses of this style have overpowering flavours, where you just end up with a mouthful of whole black peppercorns or raw garlic. But cheesemaker Simon Gough knows how to best use the oil and herbs to complement the delicious flavour of the goat's cheese.

Here's one of my favourite ways to use it: Chop some pumpkin and toss in a baking pan with some macadamia nuts and fresh rosemary or thyme, drizzle with some of the marinating oil and bake in a hot oven for about 30 minutes. Boil some pasta and toss the cooked pumpkin through, then top with the fetta. The delicious combination of sweet pumpkin, creamy cheese and crunchy macadamias is hard to beat.

Of course, you can also just enjoy it on crusty bread or crackers - Morpeth Sourdough Crisps are my preferred choice - remembering to soak up as much of the delicious marinade as possible.

*For more on Fetta vs Feta, see my previous post on Small Cow 'Fettice'

Marrook Farm 'Mountain Swiss' (aka 'Potholes')

Mountain-style
Cow's milk (Ayrshire)
Mid-North Coast
www.marrookfarm.com.au

The good people at Feather & Bone in Sydney recently introduced me to another fine, Swiss-style cheese from Marrook Farm. When they first took delivery of this new creation, they asked cheesemaker David Marks why he hadn't named it after a local land-mark, like his other hard cheeses, 'Bulga' and 'Brinawa'. In typical, straight-talking style, David replied that there were indeed a lot of potholes in the local area.

Marrook Farm 'Potholes'

While it is tempting to call the cheese an Emmental-style - that stereotypical "Swiss" cheese with holes in it - David insists it's not. It does utilise Propionibacteria to form the holes (these bacteria produce CO2 during the cheese's maturation, which pools inside the cheese forming holes or 'eyes'), it's not made using a 'hard-cooked' method like other Swiss-style cheeses. In fact, the recipe and method is a closely guarded secret, which David and his neighbour, a retired cheesemaker, came up with while experimenting last year.

Most cheesemakers would take months or years to develop cheese of this quality through experimentation, trial and error, but David just seems to have the knack when it comes to mountain-style cheeses.

Of all Marrook Farm's hard cheeses, I think 'Potholes' shows off the sweetness of the farm's milk best. The aroma of sweet, cultured cream gives way to a delighfully supple texture, filling the mouth with flavours of cultured butter, mushrooms and a hint of sweetness. It would probably make an excellent cooking cheese - think fondue made with 'Potholes' for melt-ability and 'Bulga' for depth of flavour - but I wouldn't know, because I ate the whole piece on its own.

Like all of Marrook Farm's hard cheeses, 'Potholes' is only made when the cows are exclusively feeding on pasture, so availability is seasonal. But well worth seeking out.

Country Valley 'Lush' Natural Yoghurt

Cow's milk
Southern Highlands
500g tubs
www.countryvalley.com.au

Since leaving Sydney at the end of last year, I really miss my daily fix of Country Valley yoghurt. Most days I ate it for breakfast, and it was normally the last thing I ate at the end of the day too, just a spoonful to settle my stomach before bed.

Country Valley 'Lush' Natural Yoghurt

Why do I love it? Because it's natural. And by that, I mean it is only made with two ingredients - milk and cultures. No thickeners like gelatin or vegetable gums, no stablisers, no 'non-fat milk solids' (whatever they are), no flavours, no colours and no sweeteners. Take a look at the ingredients list on so many commercially-made yoghurts these days, and most will have at least 2 of these additives; some will have all of them!

Unlike pot-set yoghuts, which often have a slightly lumpy texture and a little bit of free whey oozing from the top, Country Valley 'Lush' is thick, glossy and voluptuous.

And it's also really acidic. Yoghurt is supposed to have a sharp, citric tang, and this is one of the most acidic on the market. I'm probably in the minority, but I love eating it straight. When I told 'John the Milkman' himself, he couldn't believe I liked it unadulterated. So I asked him, if he thinks it's too acidic, why make it that way? He said he likes to give customers the option of adding honey or fruit to suit their own taste. Fair enough.

For those who just can't take that sharp, mouth-puckering tang, John and Sally Fairley also make a naturally sweetened version (somewhat confusingly labelled "Plain Yoghurt", in a blue tub), which is a lot easier on the palate. It still has a sharp acidity underneath, but it's perfectly balanced by just the right amount of sweetness.

So perfect, in fact, that it won Champion Yoghurt at the Sydney Royal Dairy Produce Show this year. Again.