Building your board
Pair hard, soft and semi-soft cheeses with homemade crackers and cheeseballs, ripe fruit and honey for an elegant cheese platter. Try these:
Soft cheese: Brie, camembert, or triple créme.
Semi-soft cheese: Le Douanier, oka or fontina.
Hard cheese: Parmigiano reggiano, aged gouda or manchego.
Blue cheese: Stilton, roquefort or cashel blue.
Wow factor: Burrata cheese. Italian for “buttered,” burrata ( boo-RA-ta) is a luxuriously creamy fresh mozzarella. Dress it up with roasted hazelnuts, basil, good olive oil and sea salt.
STRATEGY FOR ... CHEESE BOARD
1 Buy three or four types of cheese. When in doubt, try something soft, something hard and something blue.
2 Estimate 30 to 45 g cheese per person and serve on a whole piece of wood, marble, slate or tile.
3 Dress up your board with some name tags and some beautiful cheese knives.
4 Provide lots of bread, crackers or sliced baguette. Add a handful of dried fruit, nuts and fresh fruit to cleanse the palate.
5 Bring cheeses to room temperature one hour before serving to release their flavours.