Reggiano Question

[wannabechef]

I have a block of high quality (and expensive) reggiano. Would it be a waste to use this as the cheese in a homemade pesto sauce? I'm just wondering if the flavors will be lost in the sauce. Maybe it's better to use a cheaper supermarket cheese in the sauce itself - and use the good stuff for topping later?

Any thoughts or opinions?

~WBC

[hotMeat]

I'd say keep it out of the pesto or anywhere else that it will be blended in (like lasagna). On top of pasta is good but even better would be on top of a salad or in an antipasto format. It'll make the pesto better but is it worth the money? If you ask me, no. Use it where you'll really taste it and you can savor it.

Note: if I was richer, my thoughts would be different.

[albiston]

I would simply serve it as such in a cheese course, in chunks with some vegetable jam on the side. A good idea is also to serve shavings topped with just a drop of real Aceto Balsamico Tradizionale di Modena.

If you definitely want to cook with it buy some great artisanal pasta or make some fresh one yourself, the best butter you can find and make pasta burro e parmiggiano, ehm.. pasta butter and Parmesan (well Reggiano in your case). As simple as it is, it can be one of the most delicious pasta dishes I can think of.

[Busboy]

It never occurred to me not to make pesto with Reggiano. I couls see using a different variety of cheese, a pecorino or somehting, but what else would you put in with basil fresh from the garden and lovingly pressed extra-virgin olive oil from Toscana? The green can stuff?

[albiston]

Sorry, I guess I didn't manage to make my thoughts clear. I would definitely use Parmigiano Reggiano o Grana Padano for pesto, along with Pecorino. Although the traditional recipe probably called fro Pecorino only in the distant past, almost everyone today uses a mix of the two cheeses changing proportions to obtain a stornger or more delicate pesto.

On the other hand, if I had really good Parmigiano like a 4 or 5 year old cheese, like wannabechef's seems to be, I would use it in cooking only if I could find a way to showcase it. If I had to choose according to my tastes I would just eat it "as is", but I'm a cheese junky .

[weinoo]

Why would you not want to use the good stuff in anything you're going to eat?

FWIW, I like to use a blend of pecorino romano (or sardo or toscano) and parmigiano-reggiano in a pesto sauce.

[DTBarton]

Sure is nice to use really good reggiano to finish a risotto.

[albiston]

Why would you not want to use the good stuff in anything you're going to eat?

←

You mean, excluding the cheese itself on its own as something one would eat? Jokes apart, I would use it, but, as with any expensive and "rare" ingredient, I do think its part in a dish deserves to be highlighted, that's what I meant with "showcasing". Simple dishes like "pasta burro e parmigiano" described before or a simple risotto "alla Parmigiana" (white risotto with plenty of Parmigiano), as DTBarton suggests, work IMO best.

Still I would prefer to eat the cheeese "as is". Let me put it like this: if you have say a 5 year old Parmigiano Reggiano, it will have developed certain nuances in its aroma, just like a good aged wine. If you cook it, you'll loose some of the aroma, since most of the molecules responsible for this are volatile. Using it for topping is fine, yet I find (and this is really only a personal preference) that you can enjoy mature cheeses better when their aroma and flavour is undisturbed by other ingredients.

[hotMeat]

Why would you not want to use the good stuff in anything you're going to eat?

←

Good stuff cost money. If I could I'd spend $100 on every meal I made but you have to do some prioritizing, right?

[rmanchego]

I have a block of high quality (and expensive) reggiano. Would it be a waste to use this as the cheese in a homemade pesto sauce? I'm just wondering if the flavors will be lost in the sauce. Maybe it's better to use a cheaper supermarket cheese in the sauce itself - and use the good stuff for topping later?

Any thoughts or opinions?

~WBC

←

If you care enough to make your own pesto sauce, why would you want to put lesser quality cheese in it? Particularly with a fresh sauce, every ingredient should be best you can find, the finished product will be musch more satisfying!

[wannabechef]

My thinking in not using it goes along with what I think Albiston is saying. There are certain ingredients where the payoff in using the highest quality just isn't worth it. For instance - would you open a $300 bottle of wine to use for deglazing a pan? My question is - is the payoff worth it in my pesto case? I think it's possible that using an average quality parmesan in the sauce or using my expensive reggiano - may not even have that much of an impact on the taste.

However - if I top off my dish with healthy servings of the reggiano (sort of "showcasing" it) maybe it will have more of an impact on the dish. Or I can do both! What the hell.

Interesting discussion here.

EDIT: I've decided to use the good stuff all around. You only live once! I will report back if I can notice any difference. I usually only use the lower quality supermarket stuff.

~WBC

Edited April 26, 2005 by wannabechef (log)

[Mottmott]

I have both extra aged and "regular" reggiano in the fridge now. I use the latter in pesto or on pasta where it is one ingredient among many, not the star. I save the aged parm to eat with wine fruit and nuts. Try it with a few drops of balsamic. I'd also use it on pasta if it's the star of the dish or perhaps shaved on a salad where you can taste it rather than losing it in the mix. But my advice for anyone with access to a good Italian deli is to avoid the supermarket stuff. Even if it's the real thing, it's been precut and stored in plastic who knows how long.

And don't throw out the rind. use it to flavor soups

[rmanchego]

Definitely save the rinds, they are soooo good in soups!

As for trying to determine how fresh a store bought parm may be, check the wrapping. Was it hand cut and wrapped or does it look commerically wrapped? Commercially wrapped cheeses can use a thicker plastic that they drop in a shrink tank (a hot water bath) that seals the plastic to the shape of the cut.

A real hand wrapped cheese will be recently cut and will have a "sell by" date on it. The plastic film used in real hand wrapped cheese is more permeable (i.e. tiny holes so the cheese can breath).

Ideally, you have a cheese store in your area, or a deli or specialty food store that can pry off a wedge for you.

[ludja]

Great parmigiano is also nice shaved over a raw salad--v. thin slices (from a mandoline or mandoline-type device) of raw mushrooms, fennel, radishes, olive oil, lemon, s&P; then topped with shavings of cheese.

Or shavings of cheese over lightly dressed asparagus that has been roasted or cooked to crisp-tender.

Edited April 27, 2005 by ludja (log)

[wannabechef]

So I made my dish tonight with only the good quality aged cheese. I used it both in the sauce itself and on top [see below]. My conclusion is that having it in the sauce didn't really make too much of a difference. I think if you put a crappy cheese in the sauce, it would make it crappy. But a medium quality/priced cheese can make a great sauce. Having it on top though did add a lot.

[hotMeat]

Wow wannabe, it looks great.

Here's my feeling, you're getting more bang for your buck when it's shaved on top. I'm a little afraid of getting heated on this one because of the concept here that good food has to be expensive. If you're using the most expensive ingredients for everything, of course your food is gunna be good. For me, shopping on a budget and often for large groups, I have to concider how much goodness for my buck I can get. I'm not going to deep fry in $60 a bottle olive oil (smoking issues aside). Just like I wouldn't buy kobe beef to make stock.

I guess this is where I seperate myself from a "foodie." Half the fun for me is the challenge.

[Busboy]

I come at it from kind of a different direction. A quick google sets the price of Parmesan Reggiano at between $12-16 lb. I don't know what anybody's food budget is, but I find that a relatively small amount goes a long way. I'll bet, for what I pay, three or four bucks worth of Reggiano makes enough pesto for myself and my wife, and that going the less expensive route saves me maybe a buck-and-a-half. I'll bet that the pile on wannabechef's dinner (pictured above) cost less than two bucks. This isn't in the same league as $60 olive oil or $300 wines.

I eat Cheerios for breakfast and, at best, leftovers for lunch. Saving a few cents on my one good meal of the day -- a chance to relax with my family, have some wine (the cost of which, even if you're buying swill, dwarfs the cost of the cheese) and have the best damn bowl of fettuccini I can whip up, for less than $5 a serving -- seems the very definition of penny-wise and pound-foolish to me.

Most people are on budgets, even "foodies" (and if you ever use that term to describe me, I'll flay you with a cheese rasp ), and everyone enjoys a challenge. This isn't just a group of people throwing money at their dinner, it's people who like to cook. Sure, you get more bang for the buck shaving the Reggiano on top, but lifting a meal from good to profoundly satisfying for the modest cost of a better cheese is hardly a profligate act.

To go back to the the original post, if you're making your own pesto, you're already cooking better than 90% of the world (outside of Italy, of course). If you can tasts the difference, then go all the way, make dinner right. You'll appreciate it and you've earned it.

[irodguy]

In Italy you just break it into chunks and eat it with some nice Lambrusco.

[Kevin Weeks]

If you definitely want to cook with it buy some great artisanal pasta or make some fresh one yourself, the best butter you can find and make pasta burro e parmiggiano, ehm.. pasta butter and Parmesan (well Reggiano in your case). As simple as it is, it can be one of the most delicious pasta dishes I can think of.

←

The other night I boiled some little fingerling potatoes, mashed them coarsley with a fork, drizzled with a Spanish olive oil, added a touch of white pepper, and liberally grated Parmigiano over the top. Wonderful!

[albiston]

To go back to the the original post, if you're making your own pesto, you're already cooking better than 90% of the world (outside of Italy, of course).  If you can tasts the difference, then go all the way, make dinner right. You'll appreciate it and you've earned it.

←

To be completely honest with you, I don't know that many people that make their pesto at home in Italy either, except foodies. But then you can get really nice pesto from good groceries, so you tend to become lazy and enjoy what you can buy . It's not as good as self made, but close.

Getting back to using really good Parm in pesto or similar sauces, I think you hit the nail on the head when you say "If you can taste the difference". Pesto is one of these sauces were it would be hard to distinguish one made from a good Parmigiano or an incredibly good one. There's simply too many other flavors there, basil and garlic in particular will and should be the main aroma/taste one notices. It would be different with a different sauce centered on milder tastes. Sure, if you use crap cheese, that will show through even in pesto as wannabechef noted.

Maybe it would be good to define what we are talking about. In Italy a good 2 year old Parmigiano Reggiano is sold at around 10-12 € per kilo. Older ones (3 years) become slightly more expensive, around 14-18€ and becomes more and more pricey and rare as age increases. For me the 12€ 2 year old cheese is a very good product, tastes nice and I definitely use it in cooking (heck, I do that almost every day!). On the other hand if I'm lucky enough to find a five year old Parmigiano I will use it only in very simple dishes where it can shine through or eat it as is, the same way I wouldn't use caviar to make a mousse. It is not really a matter of cost for me, even if I shop with a eye on my wallet, it's simply a matter of respecting the ingredient and the work that went into making this by employing it the way which will do it justice.

Also, the choice of which Parmigiano to use for cooking also depends on its characteristics on heating. For example, if you want to use Parmigiano for cooking it is better to use younger 1-2 year old cheese because it melts better. Last month I was in a pretty good restaurant near Parma, Al Vedel, talking to the chef after a very nice meal. They use Parmigiano in almost every savory dish they made, using it both as flavoring and salting agent. We talked a while about what cheese they use and he confessed they chose very good but strictly young mountain Parmigiano. Tastes great (and you do notice the difference) and is just right for cooking.

[Busboy]

I'm not sure if we even get the seriously aged stuff over here. As you might guess, most cheese shops are eager to boast about their extra-aged cheeses (cheddar, gruyere and provolone come to mind) so they up the price a bit, but I've never seen any specially-aged Reggiano for sale. If I want 5-year-old parmesan, I have to look in the back of the refrigerator.

When I read the original post I was thinking more about the difference between using real Italian Parmesan and the domestic "Parmesan" you pick up at the grocery store. Even if you go a couple of steps up from the Green Can, the stuff still isn't in the same league as Reggiano, and the difference is obvious.

[joey madison]

If I had a choice, I'd choose to use reggiano with abandon whenever a parm is called for. But it can get really expensive. I think for sauces and other really savory applications there are some decent cheeses out there that a far less expensive. I don't know if they're available in your area, but bel giosio and stella make some parm wannabes that are perfectly fine for occasions when the parm is not going to be the stand out ingredient.

[scott123]

Although fresh basil certainly has a strong taste, I don't think it shares many notes with Parm. For me it would be like listening to a cello and flute duet. Just like if the flutist was off, if the Parm was less than adequate, it would be glaringly noticeable.

[albiston]

Although fresh basil certainly has a strong taste, I don't think it shares many notes with Parm. For me it would be like listening to a cello and flute duet.  Just like if the flutist was off, if the Parm was less than adequate, it would be glaringly noticeable.

←

Absolutely agree, basil and Parm do not share any notes at all. What I meant to say is that pesto is a sauce based mainly on basil, olive oil and garlic though, and those are the flavours you should notice first; parmesan and/or pecorino, pine nuts and eventually prescinseua (a clotted milk product used in some Ligurian recipes) should work as background melody. If the cheese (any of them) is less then adequate or if you use old pine nuts you certainly do notice.

Yet, as you can read from my and Busboy's messages above, I think we've been talking about different products here. I'm only arguing that a good young DOP (protected denominatgion of origin) Parmigiano Reggiano is enough for pesto. No need to use that expensive back of the refrigerator aged stuff Busboy has been saving for special occasions .