Other Cheese Types Category

Cow's milk cheeses are creamier than goat or sheep's milk cheeses.

Goat's milk lends cheese a tangy, earthy, and sometimes barnyard flavor. Varieties include chèvre, Montrachet, Mizithra, Chaubier, Humboldt Fog, Chabichou, Banon, and Bucheron.

pressed cheese Notes: These are cheeses which are pressed to remove moisture during their production, and then soaked in a salt bath and aged. This broad category includes most semi-firm and firm cheeses. During the production of some pressed cheeses, the curds are cooked to expel even more moisture. These firmer cheeses usually have hard rinds, which are sometimes coated with wax. Cooked pressed cheeses include Gruyère, Emmental, Gouda, and Parmesan. Uncooked pressed cheeses aren't as firm. They're often sweet and fruity when young, and they develop a more earthy and grassy flavor as they age. Examples include Cantal, Tommes de Savoie, and Morbier.

These can be gummy and insipid, and they usually have a shorter shelf life than their fattier counterparts. Reduced-fat cheeses become rubbery if they're allowed to dry out during cooking, so keep the cheese moist by adding extra liquid or by sealing in the dish's moisture with a pot lid or aluminum foil.

Sheep's milk is higher in fat than cow's milk, so these cheeses are rich and creamy. Like goat cheeses, they're also a bit tangy. Examples include Pecorino Romano (pecora is the Italian word for sheep), Roquefort, Manchego, Idiazábal, and Manouri.

The rinds of these cheeses are exposed to mold, which moves into the pâte as they ripen. As they do, they become softer and maybe even slightly runny. It's important to eat soft-ripened cheeses when they're perfectly ripe--if under-ripe, they're pasty and bland, if overripe, they become runny and ammoniated. To fully appreciate their subtle and complex flavors, be sure to bring them to room temperature before serving them. These are great table cheeses, and they're often served with bread, crackers, or fruit. They're not usually cooked. Most are covered with a felt-like white mold which is edible, but not to everyone's taste. This category includes Brie, Camembert, Toma, Coulommiers, Chaource, and Brillat-Savarin.

When making cheese, milk is curdled with the help of rennet, an enzyme that occurs naturally in the stomach of animals. Many vegetarians object to eating cheese made with natural rennet, since its production involves the slaughter of animals. Fortunately, a lot of fine cheese is now made with vegetable rennet, which is derived from fungi, bacteria, or plants. Unfortunately, the type of rennet used isn't always marked on the cheese label. Some stores help out by adding their own labels.

As they ripen, these cheeses are washed with a liquid. The moisture encourages the growth of bacteria, giving the cheese a strong odor and flavor. Many of these cheeses are soft or semi-soft and have sticky, reddish-orange rinds, which most people consider too pungent to eat. It takes a strong wine like a Burgundy or Pinot Gris to stand up to most of the cheeses in this category. Beer works, too. This category includes Limburger, Muenster, Maroilles, Langres, Epoisses, Tallegio, Abondance, Urgelia, Epoisses, Pont l'Evêque, Mahon, Reblochon, Port Salut, and Livarot.

Whey is the watery part of milk that remains after the formation of curds.