{"id":3814,"date":"2024-05-23T03:05:54","date_gmt":"2024-05-23T03:05:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/how-to-pair-goat-cheeses-with-apples\/"},"modified":"2024-05-23T03:05:54","modified_gmt":"2024-05-23T03:05:54","slug":"how-to-pair-goat-cheeses-with-apples","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/how-to-pair-goat-cheeses-with-apples\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Pair Goat Cheeses with Apples"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Erika (Sharfen) McKenzie, Chapter Cheesemaker dairy herd manager, Pennyroyal Farm<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Erika Scharfen only ever wanted to be a dairy farmer. Growing up in California\u2019s Sonoma County, she milked cows at her mother\u2019s family\u2019s farm. She wrote a high school paper on the thermal transfer in the bulk tanks of dairy cooling systems, and at University of California at Davis in the early 2000s, she specialized in dairy and livestock production. There, she fell in love with goats. \u201cThey have everything I love in dairy cows but so much more personality,\u201d says Scharfen. \u201cThey want you to scratch them behind the ears like cows, but then they head butt each other, open gates, and cause mischief. They\u2019re like puppy dogs with udders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Scharfen co-owns the hybrid operation Pennyroyal Farm<\/a> in the Anderson Valley, the winemaking region of Mendocino County. Her business partner Sarah Cahn Bennett grows the grapes and vinifies wines; Scharfen raises 100 Nubian, Alpine, La Mancha, and cross-bred goats and 30 Panama\u2013East Fresian cross-bred sheep and makes cheeses from their milk.<\/p>\n

I have often come to the Anderson Valley for its cherry-bright Pinot Noirs. But before Northern California became wine country, other agriculture dominated. Pennyroyal represents a dairy farming tradition that was strong in Sonoma. There, and in Mendocino, fruit orchards flourished, too. On this trip, I was staying at one of the Anderson Valley\u2019s last two remaining orchards, The Apple Farm<\/a>, that the original owners of The French Laundry, Sally and Don Schmitt, bought in 1984, retreating here after they sold their Napa restaurant to Thomas Keller a decade later. Today farmed by the Schmitts\u2019 daughter and son-in-law, Karen and Tim Bates, with their daughter Rita and son-in-law Jerzy, this inn, cooking school, and orchard produces over 100 varieties of apples that are sold fresh, milled into chutneys and jams, and pressed into juice and hard ciders. \u201cIn the 1930s, \u201940s and \u201850s, the area had a thousand acres of apples and just a couple hundred acres of vineyards,\u201d Tim Bates told me. The farm boasts 114-year-old trees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Cheese & Apples<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pairing apples and cheese: what works<\/h2>\n

Cheese and apples is a pairing so common that we often take it for granted. Inspired by the place where I was staying, I had arranged a tasting of the two at Pennyroyal. Apple season was over, however. The Apple Farm\u2019s heirloom trees were bare. Its exacting owners don\u2019t store their fruit; they prefer to use it when it\u2019s at its peak. But I got some storage apples from neighboring Gowan\u2019s<\/a>, another family-run operation that is the Valley\u2019s most historic. They\u2019ve been in operation since 1876. Along with varieties I had scored at an organic market, I had a good haul of fruit.<\/p>\n

Testing every possible combination of 15 varieties of apples with 8 types of goat and sheep cheese, the experience left me with a working set of rules for nailing the pairing of apples and cheese. Some combinations felt off: The cheese got overwhelmed by the zing of the apple, or the apple was clobbered by the umami punch of the cheese; the flavors or textures clashed. But the pairings that worked elevated both the apples and the cheese. Here\u2019s what I learned:<\/p>\n

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Fresh Ch\u00e8vre Needs a Balanced Apple<\/h2>\n
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Laychee goat milk cheese and Pink Lady apple<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ch\u00e8vre means \u201cgoat\u201d in French. Laychee<\/a>, Pennyroyal\u2019s version, goes through full lactic fermentation before the curd is drained and salted. Like all fresh ch\u00e8vre, it is dependent upon the flavor of the milk. In spring, it might include sheep\u2019s milk, but in winter, it\u2019s all from the goats. Their milk generally brings a lemony acidity, but when the weather is cold, the butterfat is high, and the milk is at its richest. So, then, is the cheese. That balance of acid and butterfat needs an apple to match. Whereas sweet apples like the Honeycrisp brought out a sour note in the cheese, Granny Smiths were too tart, clobbering the ch\u00e8vre\u2019s delicate flavor. Best was a Pink Lady, bred for its balance of sweetness and acidity. For flavor, \u201ca good rule of thumb is to pair like to like,\u201d says Scharfen, but where texture comes in, the hard crunch of the Pink Lady contrasted pleasingly with soft cheese.<\/p>\n

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Sharp Apples Make a Spice-Laced Ch\u00e8vre Pop<\/h2>\n
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Laychee with Fennel Pollen and Pink Peppercorn and Granny Smith apple<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At Pennyroyal, Scharfen blends Laychee with a number of ingredients to make flavored ch\u00e8vres. The Laychee with Fennel Pollen and Pink Peppercorn<\/a>, the spiciest, most savory version she makes had enough personality to handle a Granny Smith. Here, the cheese and the apple were each teetering on the far ends of the flavor spectrum. The wild sharpness of the Granny Smith tempered the heat in the cheese. So, in this case, contrast was key. <\/p>\n

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Earthy Apples Go Great with a Savory, Flavored Ch\u00e8vre for Cooking<\/h2>\n
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Laychee with Chive Flowers and Gala apple<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you\u2019re eating apples and a savory or spicy flavored ch\u00e8vre on a cheeseboard, contrasting apples are best. But if you\u2019re cooking with a spicy ch\u00e8vre, or one with Boursin-style flavors, like Pennyroyal Laychee with Chive Flowers<\/a>, dice up an earthy apple, like a Gala, to throw into your dish. That\u2019s a marriage made for a curry\u2014or even a turnover. The Gala\u2019s soft texture is perfect for baking.<\/p>\n

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Tart Apples Bring Out the Funk in Camembert-Style Cheese<\/h2>\n
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Velvet Sister and Granny Smith apple<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The semi-soft Velvet Sister<\/a> is Pennyroyal\u2019s riff on Camembert. It\u2019s made from pasteurized milk innoculated with lactic acid bacteria and Penicillium candidum, which gives it a white, bloomy exterior. Turned and salted, wrapped in cheesecloth and dried with fans before aging, it achieves a warm-butter texture when fully ripe, with a mushroomy flavor. In winter, it\u2019s made with 100-percent goat\u2019s milk, which also lends it brightness. You\u2019d imagine an earthy apple would complement it, but we found that the best pairing was a Granny Smith, whose snappy contrast accentuated the funky goodness in the cheese.<\/p>\n

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Salty Cheese, Like Provolone, Loves a Sweeter Apple<\/h2>\n
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Fog Lifter provolone-style cheese and Honeycrisp apple<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Log Lifter<\/a>, Scharfen\u2019s provolone-style cheese is named after a rain that raises creek levels enough to lift logs and send them downstream. She makes it in summer, during peak milk production, when goats\u2019 udders are full. Only aged a couple of weeks, it\u2019s a good cooking cheese. Says Scharfen, \u201cYou can throw it on your pizza. You can throw it in a burger. It\u2019s mild and melty.\u201d Like all provolone-style cheeses, it\u2019s also rather salty. That makes it a partner for a crunchy, sweet apple like a Honeycrisp or Cosmic Crisp. Their sugary flavor offsets the cheese\u2019s saltiness, and their hard texture is a nice counterpoint to smooth, semi-soft cheese. Pile slices of each onto multi-grain bread with grainy mustard and pan-toast it all for a knockout grilled apple-and-cheese.<\/p>\n

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Young, Raw-Milk Cheese Shines with a Floral Apple<\/h2>\n
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Boont Corners tomme and Fuji apple<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Boont Corners<\/a>, Pennyroyal\u2019s version of a tomme, is a raw goat\u2019s milk cheese made by washing the curds during stirring, then scooping the curds into molds for a gentle overnight pressing and subsequent brining. Scharfen offers it in three age expressions. The youngest is around two months old. It\u2019s usually made in spring. \u201cYou get a grassy kind of vegetative sweetness,\u201d says Scharfen. Fuji apples were the perfect partner for the cheese; so aromatic and flowery themselves, they brought out the cheese\u2019s springtime florality.<\/p>\n

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Hard, Sweet Apples Accentuate Nutty Cheeses<\/h2>\n
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Boont Corners Vintage and SugarBee apple<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At five to seven months old, the Boont Corners Vintage<\/a> takes on a nutty, cheddarlike flavor and a firmer consistency. The apple that pairs with it must match its texture; soft apples like an Opal or a Crimson Gold tend to seem grainy and mushy against a harder cheese. The apple\u2019s sweetness is important, too. Something sugary but not super tart does the best job of highlighting the cheese\u2019s nutty panache. For this mid-aged tomme-style cheese, we liked a SugarBee apple best. Derived from a Honeycrisp that bees cross-pollinated with an unknown apple variety, the SugarBee is only mildly acidic but with a candylike sweetness and crunchy texture that holds up to the sharper, stiffer cheese.<\/p>\n

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Dry, Earthy Apples Match a Well-Aged Cheese<\/h2>\n
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Boont Corners Reserve and Opal apple<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There\u2019s some sheep\u2019s milk\u2014about 20 percent of the whole\u2014in the eight- to ten-month-old Boont Corners Reserve<\/a>, the oldest expression of this tomme-style wheel. \u201cWith that added age, we tend to get crystallization development,\u201d says Scharfen. \u201cIt can be super sweet with caramel notes and a bit of toffee sometimes, but also a meaty, nutty kind of umami.\u201d The Opal, a fruit with a sneaky sweetness and a softer, grainier texture with not a lot of juiciness, was like the apple version of the cheese. It wasn\u2019t so sweet that it clashed with the cheese. Rather, it emphasized the cheese\u2019s cave-aged flavored. And where other cheeses would make this apple seem mushy, the aged, crumbly Reserve showed it in its best light.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Wine-Washed Cheese Pairs with an Old-Timey McIntosh<\/h2>\n
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Fratty Corners and McIntosh apple<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Washed in Pinot Noir and then buried in pomace (the seeds, stems, and skins left over from winemaking), Fratty Corners<\/a> is a cheese that truly expresses the hybrid nature of Pennyroyal Farm. It\u2019s milky and soft but with a grapey aroma. Its subtle fruitiness tasted sour when paired with super-sweet apples, but a McIntosh, which balances sweet and tart, went well. A slice of this hard, crisp apple is a good vessel for the pliable cheese.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erika (Sharfen) McKenzie, Chapter Cheesemaker dairy herd manager, Pennyroyal Farm Erika Scharfen only ever wanted to be a dairy farmer. Growing up in California\u2019s Sonoma County, she milked cows at her mother\u2019s family\u2019s farm. She wrote a high school paper on the thermal transfer in the bulk tanks of dairy cooling systems, and at University … Okumaya devam et “How to Pair Goat Cheeses with Apples”<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1271,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[395],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-milk-and-diary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1271"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3814"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3814\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3814"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3814"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sutyo.com\/tr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3814"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}