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Gorgonzola the magnificent
Guess what?
It is La Fête du Fromage once more!
Thank you Loulou for giving me this monthly rock solid reason to indulge in my favourite sin....
Gorgonzola is a straw-white, soft cheese with greenish-blue streaks made from cow's milk and taking its name from a city in Lombardy.
The cheese has been made since the high medieval era (879) and is nowadays protected by a DOC label which extends to cover production areas both in Lombardy and Piedmont.
This glorious fragrant cheese comes mostly in two forms:
Dolce – sweet - which is the creamiest and mildest, a cheese that is fairly young (from 2 months maturing)
and
Piquante – spicy - the more pungent and bluer form of the lot, due to the cheese having matured (3 months and upwards), lost some of its humidity, concentrating the flavour.
This version is also far saltier than the other one (although still nowhere near as salty as a French Roquefort) (and Microbetta's favourite - not that I let her get anywhere close to the sweet one).
This last form is the one most readily used in cooking.
And as far as cooking goes... Gorgonzola is very flexible.
On pasta, of course (often either mixed with other cheeses to make a Quattro Formaggi sauce, or with walnuts), in a dish of risotto (it goes very nicely on its own or with a risotto involving radicchio), in a sauce for grilled steaks, over some cooked cabbage like cauliflower or broccoli, in soups containing the same or some celery, melted over some baked radicchio (as is or on a pizza/quiche), over parsnips...
Goodness me, you can even eat it as is! (now that is a radical idea!)
Here's one I made for lunch:
Mushrooms stuffed with a little gorzonzola.
For more ideas, you can consult the site of the Consortium where you will find a recipe database (add your own, why don't you?). They also have some interesting information about the cheese.
It is La Fête du Fromage once more!
Thank you Loulou for giving me this monthly rock solid reason to indulge in my favourite sin....
Gorgonzola is a straw-white, soft cheese with greenish-blue streaks made from cow's milk and taking its name from a city in Lombardy.
The cheese has been made since the high medieval era (879) and is nowadays protected by a DOC label which extends to cover production areas both in Lombardy and Piedmont.
This glorious fragrant cheese comes mostly in two forms:
Dolce – sweet - which is the creamiest and mildest, a cheese that is fairly young (from 2 months maturing)
and
Piquante – spicy - the more pungent and bluer form of the lot, due to the cheese having matured (3 months and upwards), lost some of its humidity, concentrating the flavour.
This version is also far saltier than the other one (although still nowhere near as salty as a French Roquefort) (and Microbetta's favourite - not that I let her get anywhere close to the sweet one).
This last form is the one most readily used in cooking.
And as far as cooking goes... Gorgonzola is very flexible.
On pasta, of course (often either mixed with other cheeses to make a Quattro Formaggi sauce, or with walnuts), in a dish of risotto (it goes very nicely on its own or with a risotto involving radicchio), in a sauce for grilled steaks, over some cooked cabbage like cauliflower or broccoli, in soups containing the same or some celery, melted over some baked radicchio (as is or on a pizza/quiche), over parsnips...
Goodness me, you can even eat it as is! (now that is a radical idea!)
Here's one I made for lunch:
Mushrooms stuffed with a little gorzonzola.
For more ideas, you can consult the site of the Consortium where you will find a recipe database (add your own, why don't you?). They also have some interesting information about the cheese.