Soft Cheeses

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.

Coming soon ...