I’m a huge fan of cheese, so I was delighted when Kerrygold sent me a few selections to check out.
We usually buy Kerrygold butter, which we’ve found is a high-value brand that costs about the same as other brands but with the clean though rich taste of fresh cream, which it’d be nice if all butter had.
Kerrygold cheese, however, we’d never tried, though we liked the few slices we sampled, especially the Skellig, which is a “sweet cheddar.” There is, indeed, a sweetness to this cheese that you don’t find in all cheddars. Like other Kerrygold products, this cheese is made in Ireland from milk that’s free of growth hormones, which probably doesn’t have any impact on taste but is definitely a nice-to-have with any edible product.
Then the next day, we made some open-faced toasted cheese sandwiches. Oddly, with these sandwiches, the cheese had lost something, the texture was not nearly as rich, the flavor more flat.
Anthony Filomena of Kerrygold happened to email me the next day to make sure I received the shipment. I mentioned that we were disappointed with the toasted cheese version of the Skillig.
Filomena responded, “Skellig Sweet Cheddar is known to be ideal for cooking and making delicious cheese sauces and holding its rich flavor,” and he offered some advice for the problem I mentioned to him:
- Shred it. Shredding increases the surface area of the cheese so you can reduce the time the cheese stays on or under the heat.
- Use low heat. Cheese should be cooked on low heat because when the heat is high, the proteins “seize up” and squeeze out the fat. As a result of over-heating, the cheese will have a less lush mouth feel.
- Bring it to room temperature before heating…or eating. Having the cheese at room temperature before heating means that the cheese will need to spend less time under heat. Of course, when just eating cheese, you’ll find that waiting for it to reach room temperature will ensure that all its flavors are more readily apparent than if you eat it straight from the ‘fridge..
For me, the big take-away from this email correspondence was that cheese should be heated as little as possible. Once it’s melted all the way through, get it off the heat. Don’t abuse that cheese.
