You're listening to Heritage Radio Network. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Pot Luck Food Talks. We're recording live in San Sebastian. And we're going to talk about cheeses. Mmm. Cheeses Christ. Cheeses. Cheeses Christ. Cheese. The wonderful world of cheese. You got a favorite cheese? It's a hard question. I don't think I have a favorite cheese. Yeah, hard question. The world of cheese is so huge. Yeah, and it's also so versatile the way that you can use cheese in culinary applications.
You know, like you can just serve it plain as a cheese plate. Do you ever serve cheese plates?
Yes. i feel a little bit mixed about i have mixed feelings about cheese plates uh why yeah i don't know it's uh i'm a fan of serving eight cheese with maybe like one or two condiments that kind of complement the cheese and i like to keep it sort of seasonal you know that you like change the cheese A cheese plate for me is like something that I love a cheese plate and I love like going to like a bistro like in the afternoon or something. It's not really like a thing, a selection of
cheese. If you're in a cheese country like here in the Basque country, for example, you know, it's different. But I don't know, like now that I'm thinking about it, I have really mixed feelings about it because something about it is kind of like you have to think about whether it fits into your restaurant or not. And it's a lot of times, you know what it is, a lot of times it's something that I don't have on a menu and people
are like, can you make me a cheese plate? And I'm like, you know, fuck yourself, you know, like take a dessert, eat your cheese at home. If I don't have it on the menu, you know, don't ask me to make it. I mean, cheese is amazing. I love eating cheese for dessert. Yeah, me too. Like, for example, how do you like cheeses and desserts? In desserts, like actual desserts. Ah, okay. You mean like for desserts? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like after the main courses, yeah. Okay,
yeah. But I do like cheeses in desserts too. Yeah, but it's also, come on, here to have cheeses as a starter in Spain. You will have like a, I don't know, a plate of manchego or a sabal or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And super nice. It's like very, very appetizing, you know? It like gets your taste buds going. And I think this is something similar as petit fours. You don't want to overcomplicate it. You don't want to make like a plate with 24 different cheeses.
And what about this table? This old school table with cheeses. I kind of like that. If it's done well, I like it. And it's just kind of, I mean, but let's not kid ourselves. It's part of a certain restaurant environment concept and flair also. You know, if you're in this very old school French restaurant, they bring out a cheese cart. That's cool, you know? Did you read The Devil in the Kitchen with Marco Pierre White? I don't think so, no. Okay, because I think it's The Devil
in the Kitchen. There was this waiter that is going out to the service with his cheese cart. And there were two cheeses that you had just the last little pieces. Yeah. And Marco was like, hey, you can't do that. Yeah. Apparently he had already said that. And he is an absolute bully.
his method to made it clear that he should not do that he would took the pieces of cheeses and throw it to the wall and it started like melting down ah leave it there leave it there i want everybody to see but it did so for the whole service there was a cheese melting down the wall and i can guarantee you he wasn't the one who had to clean it up yeah Yeah, but I do like cheese. I like cheese as like an in -between course between
main courses and desserts. I know this is not something revolutionary, but there I, for example, I would prefer to have one type of cheese that is maybe served with like one or two things that complement the cheese that I can kind of like, you know, for example, say you have a, it's Bacherin season in the winter and you have like a nice piece of tempered Bacherin and then you have like, you know, like a pickle. There's something sweet condiment and like a bread that goes nicely
with it. I'd much prefer that than to have like five types of cheese. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Have you ever had cheese omelet? Oh yeah, of course. Like a, like a French omelet with cheese. Yeah. But there is a, I used to do one in a tapas bar I worked in Berlin, which was basically, you know, like a little cast iron pan on tortilla pan. Yeah. You whisk the eggs, pour them there. And then manchego, like, you know, like all around, right? A little bit of oregano and to the oven.
And the whole thing, soufflés. I have not seen that before. And you take it out when it's already, so the egg is cooked and the cheese is already like bubbly. And that's it. And does it become crispy, the cheese, like a little bit? It can become a little bit crispy. Oh man, I love that. That sounds super good. I've never seen it before. You know what that reminds me of? The adios de
queso in Mexico. okay have you have you seen those so this is a thing that you get in a lot of like taquerias and stuff xander you've you've seen them right that he was the queso no okay so this is really cool and you have to google it if you don't know it basically on a plancha you add a lot of like shredded cheese and you make it into like a you know parmesan crisps yes of course yeah so you make like a big parmesan crisp and when it's hot they like scrape it into
like a big cone So it's like a big round sort of like almost like these Indian dosa pancakes, you know. And they give it to you like standing up and it's like crispy, cheesy. And you just like break pieces of it off and eat it with like salsa and guacamole and stuff like that. Amazing. That's so tasty. That's ridiculously good. And in Lorea, we did like a small version of that because it's such a quintessential Mexican thing that we spent a really long time working on these
like small artillos. And getting your cheese crispy wasn't the problem, but what's difficult is to shape it into the shape that you wanted while it's still hot for then when it cools down to get crispy, right? So we were making this like little, almost like cigar tubes out of melted cheese that we would then fill with something that you can have as like a amuse -bouche. Okay, nice. And yeah, what about that? Cheeses as part
of dishes? I use that a lot actually. One of my secret hacks for certain sauces is to add a little bit of parmesan. Okay. Cream sauces. Like for example, say you have a mushroom cream sauce, you want to add a little bit more funk and umami, grate some parmesan into it. You know where I like to put some parmesan as a hidden ingredient? Vinegared dressings. Oh, yeah, that's really good also. Yeah, that works really, really well. Parmesan is basically like MSG. It's like
basically like pure umami. It's a little bit salty and super like umami rich. It gives you this like round sort of tongue feeling. And if you use it like gently, for example, in something like a cream sauce, you know, it just gives it that like oomph that you maybe don't have. This like salty, grainy umami taste. Well, there is this controversy around seafood and cheeses. Yeah, which comes from Italy, right? Originally,
I think. I don't know, but I mean, if you ask like a proper, even let's say in Germany, like a proper chef, fresh out of school, he will tell you, you can't do that. Is that right? Yeah. I thought it was a... I have that feeling, yeah. I thought it was a very Italian thing. I've seen that myself, you know, like you can't do that. There is a rule that you, that's not... Makes me kind of want to do it. Makes me particularly want to do it. For me, it's very interesting.
That's a thing in Chile. There's a traditional dish in Chile that is gratinated scallops with cheese. Oh yeah, but that's so classic. That's so nice. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's what I'm kind of thinking. That makes no sense at all. Yeah, and for example, Sebastian Pinchero here at Kai Sushi Bar, he has one of his iconic... He has both zamaki and anigiri that are scallop. And he makes a mixture of like a super nice salad cheese and butter and puts it on top and he burns
it. Yeah. So you have like same thing, raffinated.
scallops absolutely yeah you know like and it's also like a way of showcasing his chilian background and identity ah i see true sushi you know i didn't get that connection i just thought it was tasty like yeah yeah i don't know anything about chilean food um but yeah i mean i mainly hear that from italians that like in a puttanesca where there's anchovies or you know anything that with seafood or like vongole you never never grate cheese on top of that that's like a no no go really
for a puttanesca as well yes okay I always add parmesan to my puttanesca. I mean, it's like, I feel like with these statements, especially from Italians, they're like, that's impossible. You can never do that. You'll never see anybody do that. It's kind of like, well, actually, there's a lot of people doing it and also Italians, you know. So they have these very strong opinions that they feel like are rules for the like quantum physical rules that actually aren't really quantum.
Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, it's just try for yourself and have your own opinion, you know. At the end of the day, if I want to put
parmesan on my pasta, I will, you know. like because it's just tasty you know fish with cheese actually you know that brings me to one thing one of the best by far best things that i've eaten when i was in london was at a restaurant called shepherds and friends of katie were working there they made a haddock gratin haddock smoked haddock right so a white fish lightly smoked this is what they're what you do is a very traditional dish you take the smoked fish and you poach it
very lightly in milk right just so it starts to cook it starts to warm up and it starts to flake right then you take the fish you use the this like tasty smoky fish milk to make a bechamel to make a cheese sauce right kind of like a rabbit with a little bit of worcestershire sauce and and cheese like cheddar and you make this into like a like a nice sort of like thick bechamel thing kind of like the pimiento sauce that we had and then you make this like mix of haddock
and you pour the sauce on top of your gratinated And if you do it right, if you do it nice, and the fish is poached super tender, the sauce is mega, mega flavorful, and it gratinates on top. It was insane. I ate this dish and I was dying. It was incredibly delicious. Well, I mentioned in the episode where I talk about my trip to Japan, one of the best bites I had was an eel burger with blue cheese. What? Where was that? That was in Oshiage 010 in Osaka. You should
go to that place. It was really, really nice. Oshiage 010. You have to tell me that. What kind of place is it? It's a kushikatsu place. Oh, okay, cool. You know, kushikatsu is like these skewers where you have at the end like this pan, this breaded thing that is fried. When I say thing, it's because it could be anything. Yeah,
as long as it's on a skewer, basically. Yeah, and then you have like it's like a really nice way to to see the fine art of frying in japan where you know you cut these things to the middle and it's just pink at the very center and it's fried you know it's just getting the perfect timing for frying nice super nice yeah i also i really love uh like the gradual increase of cheese thank you in asian cooking i mean we were talking earlier i am a huge fan like talking
about japan i'm a huge fan of chain restaurants in japan and you know chain restaurant is Words always sound like something negative, but they have perfected simple dishes done well with good ingredients. Super fresh, super hot, really comforting, and there's nothing trashy about it. Super famously, there's Yoshinoya, which is a chain specializing in gyudon. For people who don't know, gyudon
is a very homely dish. It's basically a rice bowl and thin slices of beef with onions that are stewed very quickly and then poured over the rice. Sounds very simple. If you've had it before, it's super delicious. And these guys at Yoshinoya, they do something called cheese gyuron. So you have this like braised beef on top of rice with onions and then you put cheese on top and gratinate that. It's super filthy. It's so good. It shouldn't work, but it really,
really does. Well, I have to say when I was in Japan, for me and probably for you as well, well, you live in Japan, it's different, but... I had this idea that I could eat Japanese food every day and sushi every day for the rest of my life and I would be happy. But I have to say after 25 days there was something lacking. And it was cheese. Yeah. Was it? Yeah. Yeah. I had like this. For me it was bread. I was missing cheese like crazy. All I wanted was like a nasty pizza
with five different cheeses. It's all I wanted for birthday, you know, at the moment. I totally get it. I mean, like, I remember. I don't know how long it took, but I was craving Western food so much. Like, I mean, I had amazing food in Japan, but at some point you just want something different, right? Yeah, but it was like a need, you know? Yeah, yeah. And so we went to Pierre Garnier in Tokyo and we had a lunch there because
the lunch was like a really good deal. and Dimitri kind of saw us and he was like hey bring these guys bring these guys some extra like bread and butter and stuff i think they need it and he was like completely right and we were crushing the sourdough with butter just like butter to bread ratio one to one you know and then like cheese this is like so nice i mean it's a it's such a simple pleasure but like cheese and bread and butter or olive oil. What about fondue? Have
you done fondue? Oh, yeah. Yeah, fondue. I've never done, like, properly traditional fondue. I've eaten it a lot. There was, like, a fondue restaurant near my house in Venezuela where I grew up. Oh, nice. So I would go there with my family. Like, I don't even know, like, what the proper blend of cheese is. I think this is, again, it depends on the grandmother. Yeah. I know Comte is, like, one of the key players, but I'm not
sure. Yeah. these these um these mountain cheeses i mean they're literally called back kaiser yeah and there's like different differences in between the different back keys but they have this like comte like flavor they're always like cave aged um that's a very distinctive flavor also i think that this The culture of Alp cheeses is very under -known around the world. Oh, 100%. You talk about France, Spain, Italy, but you never talk about Austria when you talk about cheeses.
That's true, yeah. I mean, the people in the know, for people in the know, Bergkäse and Gruyere especially is like a go -to, you know, secret, secret ingredient. Yeah, I totally agree. It's like mountain cheeses aren't talked enough. A key ingredient in fondue is also a little bit of Kirsch. Not Kirsch. Kirsch is like a distilled cherry schnapps, but it's not sweet, right? There's Kirsch liqueur and there's Kirsch, which is completely dry. And that is something that you need to add
into it, or a little bit of grappa. Okay. Yeah, also. And then you have old bread, you dip it into the cheese, and it's very good. And there's a tradition, kind of like an unspoken tradition, that you don't, it's super bad manners to lose your piece of bread in the fondue. There's an Asterix and Obelix comic where people are eating fondue, and one person loses the piece of bread, and everybody's screaming to get the whip, for them to get whipped. Get the whip! You lost this
bread! But talking about underappreciated cheeses, I think by far the most underrated cheese culture is British cheese. Oh, yeah, of course. Is that a thing? It's a thing. I can only think of Stilton. Stilton is one of them, yeah. That's a big one. Stilton is actually a denomination for cheese. And there's some cheesemakers that are making Stilton -like cheese. But they want to break out of the kind of like what we talked about
with Jade, with the wine. They wanted to break out of this like very strict rules how to make the blue cheese. And so there's a very, very good cheese that's like Stilton. It's called Stitchilton. Because he did not want to call it Stilton. He called it Stitchilton. Okay. Cheddar is also British, right? Absolutely. But like the types of cheddar are vast. Vast. And the quality of cheddar. Because I feel like most people know cheddar as like this shitty, funky
supermarket cheese, right? That you put on sandwiches. Cheddar is amazing. If you have like a real wheel
of cheddar. a real wheel of cheddar it's absolutely gorgeous like parmesan when i first came to london i was after a while invited to a cheese tasting i went there because a friend of mine couldn't go and i started eating these british cheeses and my mind was blown and i'm not kidding you and i was like why the does nobody know about this for me it's on the same level as france without a doubt you know what you guys should do today because i'm leaving today but you're
still staying in santos and you should go to elcano not the restaurant yeah the cheese store the cheese store yeah they're very good i've had actually later at one time brought us to a women mugaras to a tasting of elcano and they had one cheese there which they called the torta the one that's gooey inside that's one of my favorite cheeses i will think about that it's crazy you read my mind because i will think i will say a few words about tortas yeah please
go ahead yeah like well you torta basically means cake so you have this drum shaped cheese where you cut the lid so today you open it and you scoop it out with a spoon you can do canals of it i worked in a place where we had like a uh a cheese plate and you have to make like a canal of this thing and put it on the on the plate again like a super rich fatty strong cheese amazing super super nice i really still remember it's the only cheese i remember from the cheese tasting
in elcano absolutely fantastic yeah but also like going back to british cheeses like because you have you have mainland britain and then you have scotland you have wales and it's all different right and there's like spectacular cheeses stuff like stinking bishop right which is a big sort of I don't want to offend anyone, but like a brie -like sort of cheese. Flat, squishy, milky fatty with a light funk. You wouldn't believe.
It's absolutely unbelievable. They have this breed of cows called Jersey cows that make Jersey milk. This is a thing in the UK, which is a very high quality, very fatty milk. So, for example, you can see like a plain milk ice cream in restaurants in London of Jersey milk. And it's insane because the dairy quality is insane. And there's a tradition of small cheesemongers, small, like individual cheesemongers around the country that are kind
of like legends, you know? Or there's this guy called blah, blah, blah in the Scottish wilderness that makes this particular type of goat's cheese. And you'll try it and you're like, what the fuck? Ah, yeah. I guess in any cheese producing region, you'll have that. You know, like some producer that has his family recipe that... They're the only one doing that it's not even part of a denomination, but it's like a very very special thing Right.
For example, if you go to the French Basque country again, like completely different movie like you won't find because they also have like their a french tradition of cheeses but also the basque is mixed so for the untrained eye it could look as the same but no these are completely different cheeses with completely different denominations yeah yeah that's amazing i mean because that's a mix of cultures that's super particular what about cheese in desserts like actually using
them in desserts well we've talked a lot about basque cheesecake but i was just thinking about I saw like a development, I think it was of John Eicher, who is a lecturer chef at Basque Culinary Center. And they did like this spin -off of the Basque cheesecake where they added penicillium camemberti, you know, like the mold that you use to create this velvety layer that you have on, let's say, a brie cheese or a camembert cheese.
So they would do that on the cheesecake. So you would have that layer around the cheesecake so it looked like a camembert and you would cut it and have your slice of cheesecake. I think that was pretty cool. That's very cool. And very innovative as well. That's really cool, yeah. Have you played around with that? With camemberti and these penicilliums? Nope. That's pretty cool because you can take like any milk or whatever and you will get like that. Camembert flavor.
So for sauce making, you can do a lot of stuff with that and adding that, you know, like that flavor profile. So you can just add it to a sauce or what? No, no, no. You have to let it grow in the milk. Yeah. But then you will have this.
camembert flavored milk so to say oh that's interesting so you could basically make a camembert ice cream just by inoculating the milk and making ice cream i remember in in bolivia we even did tests with with vegetable milks let's say i remember like a cashew milk inoculated with this fungus and then you would have like this strange cashew camembert kind of thing wow That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love that sort of stuff. We were
talking about it the other day. And also, like, you know, when we were in Rioja, we had another type of cheesecake with goat's cheese. Oh, yeah. That's amazing. Completely different to the Basque cheesecake. Yeah. And that was, like, so in between salty and sweet with a real funk. You could really taste the hay. Like, you know, there's, like, farmyard -y taste that some cheeses have and some ciders and whatever. And it was just really
good. Really, really good. And one of the first restaurants I worked in Venezuela, it was called Malabar, it already closed, and it was with Carlos Garcia, who was one of the best chefs in Venezuela. And they also had like a... whole pastry kitchen with a chef pâtissier who was a French guy called Pascal Chérance. He was for sure the best pastry chef in Venezuela at the moment. And he would do like his cheesecake was with a specific very light goat cheese from a specific producer in
Venezuela. It was this French style of goat cheese, very similar to what we had yesterday. But yeah, I've loved adding goat cheese to desserts like since I was in culinary school. Yeah, yeah, it's super nice because it makes total sense also. It's just like how many elaborations in the pastry world you add a pinch of salt to, you know, like a mousse au chocolat, for example. And it takes
it from being okay to being really nice. And it's kind of like that, you know, you add a little bit of funk and umami and a little bit of salt to something that's sweet. It gives it so much more depth. Yeah, like I think if you're doing like a Basque cheesecake, you should always add like a little bit of a strong cheese, just a
little bit, you know, well, you can. and make a blue cheese cheesecake but you can add just a little bit of parmesan for example absolutely a little bit of any strong cheese to you know to add like that layer of of deepness to the flavor profile absolutely it works with other stuff as well it doesn't just have to be best cheesecake i mean like traditional german cheesecake my friend norbert makes a cheesecake german style which is also baked but it's like much more fluffy
it's not so creamy And he adds aged gouda into it. And it's an actual cheesecake, you know, and it's super nice. He cooks it in a water bath. It's like super kind of like very gently set, very fluffy, almost like a Japanese cheesecake, but without the starch. That's also a thing, like into bath cheesecake, like cheddar cheese. Yeah, I've seen that a lot. Yeah, super nice.
I wonder how far you can take it. I wonder if you take a really nicely made vanilla ice cream, you grate some parmesan into it, what the effect would be. Ah, that would work for sure. Right? For sure it will. Yeah, I can completely see it. And this is like some Italian... Grating it on top, I think that's perverse, but integrating it into the mixture. There's somebody in Italy right now with a tear rolling down their face, being like, something terrible has just happened.
What about raclette? Are you a raclette person? Yeah, I love raclette. Raclette for my family is a Christmas tradition. So a lot of people from where I'm from, they'll have like a little raclette table where you have little pans and you have basically like salamander. And it's very interactive. You have loads of condiments. Usually boiled potatoes are always a part. You have boiled potatoes. You have like little ham,
pickled onions, pickled like cornichons. vegetables etc and you like build your your stuff in your pan with the cheese on top and you'll put it on this little salamander it'll melt and you pour it over the potatoes yeah i mean traditionally obviously it's the half loaf that then gets like put next to a grill and scraped off i've also had that in the black forest it's very very nice for me it's kind of like it's super fun but it's the kind of meal you uh you need to have a nap
afterwards yeah for sure um Yeah, for me, one of the best pinches in the city is Bordaberry's Risotto, which is basically mac and cheese. With the orzo noodles, right? Yeah, like this rice -shaped pasta. I love that. They do a blend of three different Ijazabal cheeses and some cream, and you have this mac and cheese. And it's incredible, man. That's like a really nice way to have a
first taste of Ijazabal cheese. like to understand what it is about like that deadness that saltiness it has like yeah yeah that's um that's a classic at portobello i remember eating that like 12 years ago there already this is a mainstay another really cool thing from british cuisine is the double baked cheese souffle have you ever heard about this no it's a very traditional dish that you find in like a lot of sort of like old high -class hotels and it's kind of having a comeback
it's basically what it sounds like you make like a like a savory souffle mix with like grated very like salty funky cheese in it and it's double baked because usually you bake it the first time so it's souffles right like a souffle you demold it you basically turn it around like we used to do with the these horrible souffles of margot And then you would pour a cheese sauce on top of it with like chives and stuff and then gratinate it. So it's like a gratinated cheese souffle.
So outside gratinated, inside fluffy egg white like cheese mix. I think life is better with anything gratinated. You know, like whatever you have, you can put some cheese on top and gratinate it. It will just be better, you know. I agree. That's it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks. If you like what we're doing, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok as Potluck Food Talks. The show airs every Monday.