Blue Cheese, Whats your favorite kind

[helenjp]

I've read every post in this thread. I love blue cheese. As for WHICH blue cheese, that 's easy - any and every tiny fragment of blue cheese that I find (only too rarely) on sale in the area of Japan where I live. I'd really like to be able to buy more than 3 oz. at a time. But I guess, since most packs are only 2 oz., that I should shut up and be grateful!

I draw the line at "blue" processed cheese though...

[foodobsessed]

Maytag for me too. Boring yes, but very true. So crisp and bursting with flavor!!

[Chris Cognac]

I've read every post in this thread. I love blue cheese. As for WHICH blue cheese, that 's easy - any and every tiny fragment of blue cheese that I find (only too rarely) on sale in the area of Japan where I live. I'd really like to be able to buy more than 3 oz. at a time. But I guess, since most packs are only 2 oz., that I should shut up and be grateful!

I draw the line at "blue" processed cheese though...

Do you get the best blue cheese dressing around...Bob's Big Boy..if not you are sure missing something!

[ElfWorks]

my fave blue is montagnolo.

mmmmmmm.

lisa

edited to correct a hideous typo!

Edited May 31, 2004 by ElfWorks (log)

[Behemoth]

Has anyone tried Marcella Hazan's romaine salad with gorgonzola & walnut dressing? I made that once at my parents house and now it is quite possibly the only thing my father ever specifically asks me to make. Luckily it is really easy to make. And the best thing ever with steak. Oh, a rhyme!

[ingridsf]

Castello (Denmark) makes a soft blue that has a butter like quality. It is the smoothest blue I’ve found. It claims to be triple-cream; not sure what that means exactly. OMG so good. Nibbled on crackers or stuffed in a big fat burger. mmmmm.

A big, fat, buttery vote for Castello from me. I was at a bbq where the apps included it and plenty of bread...had a hard time moving on to the steak.

I managed, though. Threw the cheese on the steak.

Pt. Reyes doesn't do it for me. It's too salty and dry. Then again, I use to hate bleu altogether, so I'll keep applying myself and maybe love will bloom.

[jaypm51]

I'd travel just about anywhere for a good (great) blue cheese. Tops on my list is always a well ripened Roquefort particularly Roquefort Carles if you can get it. After that Bleu d'Auvergna, Forme de Haute Loire, Gorgonzola and well aged Cabrales. In a pinch, Cambazola slathered on a freshly baked baquette aint half bad.

[Placebo]

I've become a huge fan of Rogue Creamery's Oregonzola, though their other blues are quite good as well. I also quite like Bingham Hill's Sheepish Blue (a sheep's milk blue cheese). Yum. Just the other night I soaked some fairly fresh morels in a bit of lillet to soften them up (they'd dried a bit on display at the market before I bought em), slit em down the side, stuffed each with a little bit of gorgonzola and baked them until the gorg melted. Delicious though you need to be careful about how much gorg to use or it'll overpower the mushroom taste.

[Humanic]

Let me weigh in with Maytag. I find the taste clean and crisp.

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Gotta say, with all the "fancy" restaurants sticking bleu cheese on my freakin' SALADS with VINAIGRETTE these days, the combination tastes *exactly* like vomit...

Except for Maytag. Heavenly. The _First_ (and still only) bleu cheese I ever went out and bought.

Oh, and I am a professional cook/chef; I just think most bleu lacks any form of subtlety whatsoever.

[Susan in FL]

I just think most bleu lacks any form of subtlety whatsoever.

That's not necessarily a bad thing.

I am not a professional cook/chef. I love many bleu cheeses with varying degrees of subtlety.

Currently we're enjoying an awesome Stilton that my husband brought home for us from his recent food shopping trip 1,000 miles north of here.

[Ling]

Stilton was always my favorite until I discovered Shropshire Blue. I am eating some right now....

[nr706]

Stilton was always my favorite until I discovered Shropshire Blue. I am eating some right now....

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To paraphrase Homer Simpson ... MMMMMmmmm ... Shropshire. First had it at an exclusive cheese shop in Kensington, London. A bleu with a cheddar kick.

[MarketStEl]

Do you get the best blue cheese dressing around...Bob's Big Boy..if not you are sure missing something!

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There is a local restaurant, The Venture Inn, that serves a fantastic blue cheese dressing--so thick it's almost spreadable, with huge hunks of a fairly tangy blue cheese. Within the past year, they've upgraded their salad to the point where it's worthy of the dressing--iceberg out, looseleaf/spring mix in.

On to the cheese itself: I like both Saga and Maytag for making blue cheese dip (when I was a little kid, Kraft used to have a prepackaged blue cheese dip; I've not seen this dip since, so I make my own when I feel like some). I also recently had a French blue whose name I forget; it was a raw milk cheese and extremely salty. Put me down as a Shropshire fan also, and there's not a macaroni and cheese recipe extant that can't be improved by about half a pound of Gorgonzola.

[Chris Cognac]

I just had an "Iowa" Maytag blue that was pretty good...what a suprise...Iowa!

[handmc]

Stilton. With a head on Red Wine....yum. Other than that, any other kind of stinky stanky blue cheese. Blue cheese and poppy seed crisps, so light, sooo tasty

[TarteTatin]

BLEU D' BRESSE

Outrageous! Similar, I think, to Bleu D'Auvergne. Isn't it?

Tastes like Poulet D'Bresse but bleu cheese!

Imagine that stuffed in a Bresse chicken!

Yum!

I haven't found it outside of Bresse/Macon.

Except a supermarket brand in Paris that wasn't good.

...or is the spelling, Blue D'Bresse?

[KatieLoeb]

Just tried the Bayley Hazen Blue from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont. The best of all blue worlds combined. Nutty like Cabrales, pungent and creamy, but more crumbly than Stilton. Awesome stuff! I highly recommend trying some of this if you can get your hands on it.

[jgm]

There was a pizza place in the town where I went to college, that served the most amazing blue cheese salad dressing. Pizza wasn't bad, either, but I was madly in love with the salad dressing.

Years later, the recipe was finally published in a local newspaper. They combined equal volumes of blue cheese and vegetable oil, and allowed it to soak overnight. This lovely combination was then folded into whipped cream (yes, it had been whipped). That was it. Spoon onto a salad and top with plenty of freshly ground black pepper.

[ulterior epicure]

Wow, this thread has gone untouched for far too long!

I'm a blue cheese- er. I've recently been re-acquainted with a long lost friend, the Shropshire, just after ending a wonderful relationship with Valdeon and Cabrales (the latter ended in a rather bitter and amoniac fall-out, resulting from a bad interloping cheesemonger ).

I decided to read up on what gives Shropshire its Cheddar-like colour. I discovered that it is in fact coloured with the same agent as Cheddar - annato. Now, I don't know that much about annato, but I do know that it's not from England - nor anywhere else near that longitudinal/latitudinal coordinate. So, how did annato get into English cheese? I know Shropshire isn't that, but Cheddar is...

Edited November 6, 2006 by ulterior epicure (log)

[Susan in FL]

Wow, this thread has gone untouched for far too long! 

I agree! Way too long... This was one of my favorite topics.

It's interesting that you mentioned the impression of your last Cabrales. It's probably been my overall favorite since I first discovered it, but the last time I had it, which was a month or two ago, I was terribly disappointed. You described how it was for me. What's up with that? Just a coincidence, do you think, or is there something vulnerable about Cabrales and I never had the bad luck before?

[Sentiamo]

For me, the best blue is Kapiti Kikorangi made right here in Godzone aka New Zealand. With a 1/2 bottle of a late harvest sticky wine, some toffeed walnuts and even a hunk of gingerbread, I am one contented chickie!

I know a store in NYC carries it, and darned if I can remember the name. Ummm.... Murrays, Freddies, Larry's....something like that!

[Catriona]

Forme Sauternes - a Forme d'Ambert that's been ripened in Sauternes for 2 months.  Heavenly.

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Wow. Sounds good...

Cashel Blue or roquefort for me.

[MarketStEl]

I just had an "Iowa" Maytag blue that was pretty good...what a suprise...Iowa!

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Not at all. Iowa is where all Maytag Blue comes from.

Newton, Iowa, is home to The Maytag Corporation, the famed appliance maker whose repairmen have plenty of time on their hands. Make that was: Whirlpool Corporation of Benton Harbor, Mich., acquired Maytag this year.

The Maytag family, however, is still around. They own and run Maytag Dairy Farms, also in Newton, which was founded in 1941 by F. L. Maytag II, grandson of the appliance company's founder. According to the Wikipedia article on the farm, Maytag started the cheesemaking operation at the family's dairy in the early 1940s to take advantage of a process recently developed at Iowa State University to produce blue cheese from cow's milk rather than sheep's milk.

Relevant aside: Another Maytag is a respected brewer. Fritz Maytag is responsible for the revival of San Francisco's Anchor Brewing Company in the 1980s.

[Mikeb19]

Fourme d'ambert and Roquefort. I've also had a few very good soft cheeses w/ blue veins, but forget the names...

[Kris]

Just tried the Bayley Hazen Blue from Jasper Hill Farm in Vermont.  The best of all blue worlds combined.  Nutty like Cabrales, pungent and creamy, but more crumbly than Stilton.  Awesome stuff!  I highly recommend trying some of this if you can get your hands on it.

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I am NOT a blue cheese lover...or even a blue cheese "liker."

But I tried some of this last week and I'm hooked.