Explore four of Italy’s most iconic cheeses as Carla breaks down their unique tastes, textures and recipes that highlight each cheese.
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I could eat that all day breakfast lunch or dinner give it to me last meal that’s what I want to eat Italy is one of the world’s greatest and most prolific producers of cheese and in this chapter I’m going to be talking to you about Italian cheeses I’m
Going to go through four iconic examples that are made in regions all across Italy we’ve got Gorgonzola Dolce rata Sal one of my personal favorites parmesano regano AKA parmesan and peino Tuscano I’m going to talk about the texture of each the flavor of each how I like to prepare and serve
Them and even give you guys some really easy recipes so that you can show off these cheeses at home first up one of my absolute favorite cheeses ricotta Salada I think that I love it so much because you can’t always find it so it lends an erir of
Specialness to it and also because once you have it you want to use it ricotta Salada is a cow’s milk cheese from Sicily that traditionally would be made with the way left over from the ricotta making or mozzarella making process so it’s a very light mild cheese that I
Think in America we often think of fresh ricotta which is more of a cottage cheesy texture spoonable lovely delicious sweet this is whole milk whereas rata Salada is lighter and it’s left to hang in these baskets you can actually see the impression of the open weave of the basket where the cheese is
Put into and then left to drain so it drains off the excess liquid and as a result you have this firm but crumbly kind of texture T of cheese I love this cheese in salads it is traditionally grated over a Sicilian pasta called pasta ala Norma I would love it on a
Thin sandwich like soft white bread maybe a little drizzle of olive oil and fresh thinly sliced pieces of pears I think that would be really delicious it would be wonderful in a beet salad so lots of different ways that you can enjoy it you can also just snack on it
The salad that I’m going to show you today is made with clementines pistachios ricotta Salada and a good amount of black pepper and a little bit of honey and lemon juice it’s a Savory fruit salad with the cheese and the fruit combined I’m going to get
Started on the salad I have some chopped up pistachios toasting in a little bit of olive oil already on the stove they’re nice and golden brown and warm the first ingredient I’m going to add is about a tablespoon of honey I’m I’m going to turn this into a vinegret I’ve got half
Of a lemon adding a big pinch of flaky salt and lots of cracked black pepper all right I’m going to set the dressing aside I like to kind of cut these IR regular I think it’s kind of key though to have a cut side so that the Clementine juices start to mingle
Into the salad the recipe calls for a pound and a half that’s going to be about eight Clementine as for the cheese you can really have it any shape that you want but I’m going to do really thin little shavings and these will kind of break apart in a pretty
Way this this is sweet and juicy and crunchy and sour and milky and tender it’s kind of got it all okay so to finish this Clementine and pistachio salad with ricot Salada I’m going to do another little squeeze of lemon little more Pepper and a last sprinkle of salt m
That salty bouncy texture of the cheese with the added salt and the pepper um it’s really bringing out everything that’s delicious about ricot Salada and then this incredible like bright juiciness that’s balancing the kind of dry in a good way crumbly texture of the ricot Salada is truly
Terrific this is pecino Toscano this is a young sheep’s milk cheese it has a nice squeezy melty chewy soft texture it’s very similar to Grier so if you like the texture of that cheese you will probably like peino Toscano a lot of people think that they don’t like peino
Because they have had peino Romano which is from a different region this is from Tuscany this is from from the southern part of Italy this is aged it’s much more crumbly for grating and even just smelling it it’s much funkier it’s sharper it’s a little bit pungent I
Happen to like it but I think a lot of people have had peino Tuscano and it’s too much for them it’s too salty it’s too funky and so they think that all pecaros are like that they’re not it’s still a sheep’s milk cheese but it’s young it’s nutty it’s
Sweet it’s a great snacking cheese cheese and you could use it anywhere that you would use cheddar or monterey jack or Grier try subbing it with peino Toscano one of my favorite ways to eat peino Toscano is in this salad it’s kind of a riff on an Italian chopped salad
With fresh beans and a little bit of cured meat fresh oregano and a really nice light easy vinegret so to make the salad first up I just have some nice mix of beans these are sugar snap peas and French beans or any green bean that have been cooked briefly in salted boiling
Water just until they’re tender and to take off that kind of raw crunchiness of them and then shocked in ice water to cool them down stop the cooking and preserve the green color so I’m just going to combine those beans together and this is sasada it’s a type
Of salami that you can ask at the deli or wherever you’re buying cured Meats to just cut it off in one piece so that you can cut it into nice chunks I’m going to cut these into bite-sized pieces about a/4 inch I need 4 oz of peino this is about
A 7 o piece so just going to take off most of it the Rind of peino is soft but I’m still going to trim it and then aiming for about the same size pieces as I did the soada in this vinegret I have white distilled vinegar white wine vinegar salt pepper a
Pinch of sugar just to balance out some of those acidic vinegars and that’s just whisk together so it’s going to be the prettiest and the freshest right after you dress it just going to drop a few fresh oregano leaves over this that’s my young peino salad with two
Kinds of green beans some soap risada vinegarette and fresh oregano I’m going to have a little taste little soer sadaa and the cheese m m the saltiness of the peino is pairing really nicely with the richness of the salami but then the beans are really crunchy and bright and juicy so
It balances out the richness and it’s acidic it’s a nice peppery flavor from the olive oil everything tastes great together mhm next up is parmesano reano AKA parmesan true parmesano reano is made in the Amelia Romana region of Italy and in order for it to be called parmesano
Regano it’s always made with cow’s milk it has to be aged for a minimum of 14 months lots of things go into making this so if you want to make sure that you’re buying true parmesano regano ask the cheese Monger to let you look at the Rind every rind of parm is stamped
Parmesano regano that’s how you know you’re getting the good stuff and this is also a good insurance that you’re paying good money for this you want to make sure it’s the cheese that you believe it is the texture of parm parm is known as a Grano which means grainy
It also breaks apart in a really cool way into kind of natural chunks and when you cut it open you can see that grainy texture one of my favorite ways to enjoy this cheese is just as a snacking cheese I also use parm in my soups and stews I
Shave it with a vegetable peeler and use that in salads I’ve got these tiny little crystals that melt in your mouth it’s nutty it’s salt salty and a really rich fantastic flavor it’s so good I love it so much one of my most favorite and simplest ways to enjoy parm is to Simply
Grate it over a bowl of cooked wheat berries which I already have a batch simmering on the stove behind me so these are wheat berries also labeled farro cook the wheat berries according to package instructions with a little bit of olive oil salt and pepper and serve it in the BR
That the wheatberries make so I’m just going to dress the wheatberries with a little extra olive oil I love black pepper so I’m going to add some more black pepper and then using one of these nice hunks of parm that I just broke off to enjoy like this I like to use a
Fine toothed grater and the cheese will literally start to melt into the broth as it hits the hot liquid but you should keep going until there’s like a nice snow cap Mountain on top I love all kinds of grains but I really love wheat berries it’s got this really light body
A little bit of pepperiness from the olive oil and the black pepper and then you just taste the whole roundness of the parm itself so essentially with two ingredients I’ve made like a wheat berry parmesan Soup now I have a very colorful cheese from the Lombardi region of Italy this is Gorgonzola Dolce this is a blue vein cheese as you can see it is a little bit funky it’s a little bit sharp it has a very creamy lovely texture and if you’ve
Had blue cheeses before that just were too much too much on the nose too much Funk too sharp too salty this is a good way in because it’s a blue cheese that hasn’t been aged for that long it’s milder it’s sweeter so you can see it’s got that kind of sticky stretchy texture
That you would find maybe in a bre cheese or Cam bear M it does this thing where it like makes me tangle up on this part of my face the creamy part is creamy and Rich and nutty and then when you hit a little pocket of that blue cheese that’s where you get
That kind of sharp Dusty funky but in a good way um flavor so it’s a really lovely gorgeous textured cheese I’m going to show you a preparation using the gorgona dolche that I think is great as like a party starter I think it’s great as a mid-afternoon snack if you’re
A Savory breakfast person this would be amazing way to start off the day you could really have it whenever you want this is fig Jam you can find this pretty much in every Supermarket if you don’t find fig pear jam pear and gorgona go incredibly well together and if you
Didn’t have toast you could do this on a cracker the gorgona is super spreadable luscious you can tell by how easily it moves around I’m going to add a little black pepper just that little bit of spiciness um really amplifies the little bit of sharpness that you get from the
Blue and then to gild the Lily to drizzle of honey just cut it in half m m i taste the Fig first it’s that sweetness and richness the way fig has that like really deep fruit deep sugary almost caramel flavor and then you get the saltiness and the creaminess of the blue cheese
The little cracks of pepper I guess also the honey is like making a little sweet sandwich for the blue cheese in between terrific combo love it don’t fear blue cheese if you have had ones that were just too much for you give gorgol llce a try and pair it with something sweet
Which will be a terrific way to enjoy it and might make the introduction a little bit sweeter today I had a lot of fun tasting and cooking with these four incredible cheeses from Italy we had Clementine and pistachio salad with the ricot Salada beautiful young peino salad brothy wheat
Berries and parmesano regano and the gorgona Dolce with fig jam and honey I hope that this introduction to these cheeses and the dishes that you can make with them will serve as a gateway to the rest of the incredible cheeses from Italy
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