A selection of Emmi Roth cheeses
For a while I’ve been a quiet fan of Emmi Roth‘s cheeses. I found them to be pretty darn good artisan Swiss cheeses that is produced on a large scale. They produce award winning cheeses and it shows when you taste and cook with them.
The two imported Swiss cheese are from the Kaltbach family. The Kaltbach Emmentaler AOC matures in the the raw cow’s milk for 3 months in the cheese dairy and at least 9 months in the cave. It’s nutty with a touch of pleasantly sharp tang. Their Le Gruyère AOC sweet, nutty but slightly salty. It’s a bit more earthy and complex compared side by side to their American made Grand Cru Gruyère, which is aged 6 months. Both are delicious its own ways.
Buttermilk Blue cheese with figs from my garden
When I served this Buttermilk Blue, that was aged over 60 days, my mom went crazy for it. This cheese was beautifully funky, salty and lusciously creamy. The sweet figs from my garden was a great pairing for this cheese.
Grand Cru Gruyère is aged four to six months, nutty yet not too salty that it can work for both savory applications (like the popovers you see above) and sweet (can eat straight up, like I tend to, with some honey or fresh fruit). I ended up baking Gruyère popovers with my Le Creuset mini cocottes as my first trial of baking with this particular cheese and it worked wonderfully. The cheese provided a great nutty, slightly complex background flavor as well as the expected creamy, gooey factor that you’d want in a popover.
Emmi Roth creates great Swiss cheeses and it’s great to have for both as a cheese plate and cooked. Below is my popover recipe.
Grand Cru Gruyère Popovers
Recipe adapted from BLT Steak
Makes 12 popovers
3 cups milk
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon kosher salt
6 eggs
6 ounces Emmi Roth’s Grand Cru Gruyère cheese, grated
1 1/2 tablespoons espellete pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 tablespoons fresh chives, finely chopped
Popover Pan, about 8 mini cocottes, OR 2 standard sized 12-cup muffin pans
Directions:
Place a 6-cup popover pan in the bottom third of an oven. Place a baking sheet on the rack underneath to catch any drips. Preheat the oven to 400ºF.
In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, warm the milk until small bubbles form around the edges. Put the flour and salt in a fine-mesh sieve and sift onto a sheet of waxed paper. In a large bowl, whisk the eggs until frothy, about 2 minutes. Slowly whisk in the hot milk, whisking constantly so the eggs don’t cook, then gradually whisk in the flour mixture until almost smooth. Stir in the the peppers and chives.
Remove the popover pan from the oven and spray the cups with nonstick vegetable spray. Fill the prepared cups about three-fourths full with batter (or 1/8 inch less from the edge of the cocotte or muffin pan) and sprinkle each with 1/2 oz. cheese.
Return the pan to the oven and bake for 15 minutes, then rotate the pan 180 degrees. Continue baking until the popovers are browned and puffed, 30 minutes more; do not open the oven after rotating the pan.
Invert the pan and remove the popovers. Serve immediately. Using a paper towel, wipe out the excess fat from the popover cups. Heat the pan in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes. Repeat to bake the remaining batter.
For more photos of my Emmi Cheeses and the baked popovers, please scroll through my slideshow below:
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Information:
Emmi Roth USA
Website: http://www.emmirothusa.com
The Kalthbach (Imported from Switzerland)
Website: http://www.emmi-kaltbach.ch