Why Cardo is such a special cheese

The buzz at the Bristol Wine and Food Fair, where I've been giving cheese and wine masterclasses for the past couple of days has all been about Cardo, a semi-soft washed rind goats cheese made by Mary Holbrook at Sleight's Farm in Somerset and on sale at the Trethowan's Dairy stand

It's a rare cheese, only made at certain times of year (now) and distinguished by two things: it's set by extract of cardoons, an artichoke-like plant, rather than by animal rennet and its rind is washed with water rather than brine.

Holbrook, who doesn't have a maturing room herself, delivers them up to Neal's Yard and they're matured in a room with other washed rind cheeses but not encouraged to develop their pungency. Basically it turns a bloomy-rinded cheese that would otherwise look like a Brie into one with a slightly crumbly greyish rind (rather than the sticky one you would get with a cheese like Stinking Bishop) and a flowing, gooey centre. The cardoon seems to give a particularly silky texture to the cheese together with a rich, sweet but not at all cloying flavour.

I managed to get a wedge but it was selling like hotcakes, even at the special Fair price of £35 a kilo. You can apparently buy it at the Neal's Yard shops in Borough Market and Covent Garden in London.

Finn and Mushroom Melt

One of the problems about being a cheeselover is that cheese is not exactly slimming - or at least not in the quantities that I eat it - so I'm always on the lookout for ways to reduce the overall calorie load of any cheese-based meal. Leaving out or reducing the amount of bread, pasta or potatoes is one option. Skipping an accompanying glass of wine another.

At lunch today I fell upon a new way to do a melt. I fried up some sliced portabella mushrooms with a little garlic and parsley then added some sliced Finn, a gloriously rich triple cream-style unpasteurised cow's milk cheese made by Charlie Westhead of the Neal's Yard Creamery in Herefordshire*. It had been at room temperature for an hour so melted beautifully into the mushrooms. The meal was completed by a lightly dressed watercress salad and a small slice of potato bread and frankly was just as good as if I'd made the whole thing on toast (which would probably have gone soggy).

If you can't find Finn, which is available from Neal's Yard and new on-line retailer Pong (from whom I got it) you could use Brie.

A good Morbier

I've always loved the look of Morbier with its striking band of ash down the centre but have frequently been disappointed at the taste. However I bought a good one the other day (right) which was delicious, with a nice semi-creamy texture. Better news still it went very well with a glass of the red wine we had open, a ripe, generous garnacha called Higueruela from a relatively unknown denomination called Almansa east of La Mancha. (Semi-soft cheeses of this style usually struggle with reds.)

According to the Morbier website - yes it has it's own dedicated one - it has been produced in the Jura for some 250 years. Traditionally it was made with leftover curd from Comté cheese which was covered with a light vegetal ash to stop a rind forming overnight before the mould could be topped up with the next day's leftover curd. You can see on their step by step slides of the cheesemaking process how the distinctive layer of ash is added these days. It has to be matured for 45 days, according to the AOC regulations, but is more commonly matured longer

If you're a fan you can even send a Morbier e-card. I don't think I'd go quite that far though I rather like the ones of the cows ;-)