The cheese dip you make from cheese scraps
Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: strong cheese is the delicious solution for all those leftover cheeses.
If you eat as many different cheeses as we do, there's a good chance that in your fridge the ends of brie and chèvre and the dried-up remnants of hard cheese are piling up. There's always another cheese that needs to be tasted. But there's no reason to throw away all those leftovers, because you can still make something from those sad little pieces that will make any cheese-loving heart beat faster.
The less moisture a cheese contains, the longer it generally lasts. So a piece of old or aged cheese can look quite dried out, but still show no mold. And with white or light green mold formation, you can just cut that off. And that's good news, because together with all the other leftovers of brie, goat cheese, Parmesan or Grana Padano you then make this super simple dip in the food processor: strong cheese.
Big stinker
The translation of strong cheese is strong cheese, and you can imagine that a mixture of intense cheeses deserves this name. But the nice thing is that you have control over how strong and fragrant you make the result. If you want to start slowly, leave out the blue cheese and use a combination of soft cheeses like brie or Taleggio with some spicier leftovers of longer-aged Appenzeller or Gruyère. But even old Gouda works well in it. And if you can handle it, you can of course just throw in the blue cheese or stinky red molds.
By the way, we don't say here: just throw all the rinds in, because you can't eat plastic and synthetic rinds, and the rind of Parmesan cheese is better used in soup or the chili con carne. We're really talking about the last leftovers before you get to the rind.
No recipe-recipe
It's so simple that it can't really be called a proper recipe. A food processor is essential, unless you're only using soft cheeses, because then you can just roll up your sleeves and mash and mix with a fork. Put all the leftovers (aim for 200 grams, but less is of course fine) in the food processor with the chopping blade, grind some pepper over it and add a small pinch of salt, pour in 50 milliliters of white wine (or cooled vegetable broth if you don't want to use alcohol) and blend until smooth. If you like it even spicier, you can also grate a small clove of garlic in before you turn on the machine. Microplane before you turn on the machine.
Then you dip everything you like in raw vegetables, or spread it on good crackers. In the restaurant where I used to work, we served it on toasted kletzenbrood (rye bread with currants), which is also delicious!
