cheese

I notice that Nigella Lawson did a Spanish style dish last night. The finished product didn't look too Spanish to me in its presentation, but I do agree that chicken and chorizo go together very well. And she nearly pronounced chorizo correctly - opting not to go for the Italian style pronunciation favoured by most TV chefs.
But today's topic is cheese and I will try and stick to the subject. With regard to Spanish cheeses available in the UK, there can be little doubt that manchego is pre-eminent. Manchego ranges from mild to quite fierce. The herringbone pattern on the rind is a memory of the days when the maturing cheeses were wrapped in esparto grass.
On a trip to Asturias a few years ago, Cheryl and I tried a cheese called Afuega'l Pitu - fire in the throat in the Asturian dialect. If ever a cheese was aptly named it was this one. It was served up as part of a cheeseboard of hugely varied tastes, strengths and textures. Galicia has the famous tetilla cheese and Menorca has some pretty good artesan cheeses. Milder cheeses made from goats' milk are pretty ubiquitous throughout Spain. My favourite cheese though, is the torta de La Serena, a ewes' milk cheese from the steppe country of La Serena in Badajoz province. I brought two of these home from a trip to Spain last year. I kept them in the freezer for three months until my 50th birthday in June. A couple of days before the party I took them out of the freezer to allow them to come up to room temperature. Once at room temperature this cheese can be poured like honey - although the best way to serve it is to cut the top off and dig in with bread or crackers. It wasn't my intention to focus on the produce of Extremadura, but the time I spent living there has obviously had a big effect on me. Tomorrow I will have a look at the food of Andalucia and some of the islands.