Soft Cheeses

St Jude is a an award-winning, hand-made cheese produced from the raw milk of a herd of Montbéliarde cows reared on the Crickmore’s family farm in Suffolk. Made as a lactic style cheese (as opposed to its harder rennet-set cousins), this small cheese has a mould-ripened rind along the lines of a Saint-Marcellin or Brillat-Savarin. Inside is a wonderfully smooth paste. It’s usually eaten as a young cheese (2-5 weeks old), retaining a welcome fresh quality behind the unctuous fullness.

Attractive, small and puck-like, its saggy creaminess is confined to a handy wooden box. And like all truly artisanal cheese, the exact flavour profile changes over the course of the year depending on the diet and lactation cycles of the cows. Winter brings on a fattier, buttery tone that is more than welcome on the Christmas cheese board; greener and grassier aromas predominate in the warmer months. Either way, this is quite a robust-tasting cheese, the outer layers having that distinctive vegetal, slightly baby-sick tone (N.B. the latter is a technical term in cheese tasting and not as unwelcome as it sounds!). The inner paste is smooth with a slightly textured mouthfeel. Deep, umami flavours undercut the light creaminess to provide a nicely balanced cheese that would go fabulously with the red fruits and loamy undergrown of Pinot Noir.

It has a rather wonderful sister, too: St Cera which is a washed-rind version with a classic pink cast to its stickier, more pungent rind.

Those fine affineurs who put together truffled bries (often in the run up to the festive period) closely guard their exact recipes. I was lucky enough to see one in action behind the scenes of Paxton & Whitfield one December. Without giving away any trade secrets, a whole wheel of brie is carefully sliced laterally and then the bottom portion spread with a mixture of truffle (usually black truffle and usually paste) and a light, creamy carrier like crème fraîche, marscapone or cream cheese (or a mixture of the above). The top portion of cheese is then replaced and off it pops to take up a prime position in the cheese monger's display.

It helps if you start with a good brie of course (look for the usual Brie de Meaux from a good producer). I've not come across Brie de Melun treated in this way. It may be because it's simply less common a cheese or that its saltier, more robust flavour would fight with the truffle. In any case, the creamy, softness and brassica lift of Brie de Meaux is an absolutely perfect foil for the allium depths of truffle. 

The visual and textural contrast between the cool, flecked white of the centre and the heady, cream-coloured paste of Brie is part of its charm. And the aromas are almost impossible to resist. It needs no other cheese to accompany it on a cheese board, in fact it demands your undivided attention. So buy as large a slice as wherewithal allows (be warned it's not cheap!) and then prepare for the coos of delight when you bear it aloft into the feasting hall.

A good Blanc de Noir is up to the task of all this rich pungency. Or head for Chardonnay with a hefty dose of oak. Pinot Noir is often friend to cheese and here would pick up the woodsy undertones of the truffle. Anything more 'pale and interesting' is likely to fade in the face of such richness.

This utterly scrumptious goat’s cheese came highly recommended by the fine folk at Chelsea’s London Cheesemonger. Mistralou is a Provençal raw-milk cheese whose name must surely refer to the local Mistral winds. It's certainly the sort of thing that you'd want by your side to see out the windy season, accompanied by a flagon of the local rosé.

It's from the family of local cheeses that come wrapped in sweet chestnut leaves, the most familiar being Banon Feuille. Made by François and Vanessa Masto at their farm in Simiane-la-Rotonde (which seems rather an apt name for the home of such an unctuous cheese) it uses the rich and flavoursome milk of the fantastically horned Rove goat. This showy breed is also a local, hailing from just outside Marseille.

Sweet, perfumed and almost honeyed when young, the cheese matures into a glorious silky number gently oozing from its leafy coat. The wrapping is employed for more than just aesthetic reasons, rustically cute as it is. It helps the cheese to mature in the correct way and even adds a slight tannic grip to proceedings which is entirely welcome as the cheese slides from fresh lactic bite into deeply aromatic, molten creaminess.

Distinctly goaty but not aggressively so, it could well take up a place on a regional French cheeseboard but I suspect would really come into its own on a sunny riverside picnic gobbled with good bread and even better tomatoes. White or 'that rosé' again would suits its personality best as the tannins here would fight off all but the mildest-mannered of reds.

The darling of the Levantine kitchen, Labneh is perhaps best described as a sort of proto-cheese – basically, yoghurt with added salt left to drain of its residual whey. Super-simple, it’s the sort of thing to rustle up at home. And I do. Regularly. It’s easier to start with Greek yoghurt as it’s relatively thick and so easier to handle. Just add sea-salt flakes, wrap in a muslin or cheesecloth and leave to do its thing overnight. What emerges in the morning a lovely white, chalky-textured cheese-like stuff somewhere between ricotta and a fresh curd cheese. 

Retaining its yoghurt freshness, it’s a wonderful foil for additional flavourings. I like mine with fresh dill, lemon zest and garlic stirred through. Even easier to make than homemade butter with which, incidentally, it goes wonderfully on toasted sourdough or bagels. Best stored by rolling into balls, dusting with za’atar or sumac and submerging in a pot of olive oil.

It’s natural home is the Middle Eastern kitchen, so is excellent slathered on flatbreads and pitta, accompanying chicken shawarma or otherwise gracing the meze table. It can nicely take the place of cream cheese with smoked lox and is also friend to sweet things like honey, figs, fruity syrups. Steven Lamb’s Cheese and Dairy book (a River Cottage Handbook) has a lovely simple version and much else besides.

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