THE ULTIMATE Cheeseboard
Cheese and wine make for a magic combination, and a simple solution to the conundrum of what to serve at a gathering. Check out our go-to guide to celebrate New Zealand Cheese Month.
Who doesn’t love a great cheeseboard? But how do you choose the perfect selection for your next drinks or dinner get-together? We have rounded up our ideal collection.
Choose a variety of tastes and textures for your guests, including hard, fresh, semi-soft, soft, and blue cheese. Dried fruits and fruit pastes make a great accompaniment; we chose dried figs for our platter, but apricots, pears, Muscat raisins and even dried cherries work well. There’s a huge variety of fruit pastes available – from blackberry and brandy to feijoa and pear – and these can echo the flavour of your dried fruit. Cured meats such as prosciutto work beautifully with buffalo mozzarella, while black olives share the love with feta. And of course you’ll want a variety of fabulous crackers and/or lavosh to pair with everything.
It’s a good idea to plate up soft and semi-soft cheeses up to two hours before serving so they can come to room temperature. Take cured meats out of the fridge for 15 minutes for the same reason. It is up to you whether you want a formal presentation or something unstructured – guests might not want to disrupt anything too fussy, so a little messy is often the way to go. FRESH When it comes to choosing cheeses, start with something fresh. Characteristically light, milky and tangy, these cheeses are moist and highly perishable so should be eaten within days. Buffalo mozzarella, ricotta, feta and goat’s milk cheese TRY Clevedon Valley Buffalo Viavio Stracchino SOMETHING DIFFERENT Impress guests with a cheese that will add contrast and be a talking point. Mix things up with say, a goat’s milk or cumin and cloves gouda, a smoked havarti or a port wine cheddar. Peppered, marinated and flavoured cheeses, sheep’s milk cheese TRY Meyer Cheese Goat’s Milk Gouda BLUE Known for its intensely pungent aroma, we think every cheeseboard should include a blue. From moist and creamy to dry and firm, this earthy cheese is always a hit. Match it with honeycomb or a fruit paste. Blue cheese, Blue vein, Gorgonzola TRY Kāpiti Kikorangi Blue Kingsmeade Sunset Blue Puhoi Valley Kawau Blue SOFT AND SEMI-SOFT Creamy cheeses have a white mould coating. They are soft with a creamy body and a mild, delicate flavour. Creamy cheeses develop flavour as they mature so buy those that are near to their ‘best before’ date. Think of them like avocados – too firm and they’ll be too young; softer and they will be mature with a stronger flavour.
Another popular, versatile cheese is a matured Dutch Gouda. It has a firm texture with a mellow, almost sweet flavour. Brie, Camembert, Gouda, Edam TRY Puhoi Valley Washed Rind HARD A tasty aged cheddar is a great pick. A good one has a sharp taste and is firm and crumbly with a full-bodied crunch. A cheeseboard star! And of course you can’t go past a generous grating of fresh parmesan to lend depth, authenticity, and a bold, salty punch to your Italian dishes... Cheddar, Wensleydale, Parmesan TRY Kāpiti Port Wine Cheddar ACCOMPANIMENTS Variety is the spice of life! Enhance the flavour of cheese by pairing it with a selection of accompaniments and experiment with different flavour, texture and colour combos. Of course, the final element is a glass of wine, without which a cheeseboard is simply not complete! TRY 180 degrees Original 4 Seed Oat Crackers 180 degrees Chia Poppy Sesame Lavosh Barker’s of Geraldine Sundried Tomato & Caper Antipasto Barker’s of Geraldine Feijoa & Pear Fruit for Cheese Delta Hatters Hill Pinot Noir 2017