GET A DREAM CHEESE PLATTER WHILE AVOIDING THESE MISTAKES.
If you have innate entertaining skills, it’s only natural to be able to offer an amazing cheese platter. It’s the perfect opportunity for cheese lovers to find a new favorite, or it may also be that awkward moment when you realize that the supermarket cheese you kept in the fridge for a few weeks might break your knife and is not what you and your guests deserve.
With the fantastic party coming up, it would be great if everything went well as planned from the very first attempt. At Laguiole we want to give you some tips to improve your cheese game.
* Bring it to the table
Take the cheese out 30 to 40 minutes before the celebration begins; cheese at room temperature reveals the subtleties of flavor better than cold cheese – and is more pleasant to eat. Let the cheese relax as it is doing.
* Serve a pre-sliced cheese.
It may sound obvious, but many times our guests in the middle of the excitement and the heat of the conversation cut the cheese in an inappropriate way, and this causes the rest of the guests to have to figure out a way to cut. Messy, isn’t it? It’s easier to have the cheese cut into small triangles, or thin slices so they have an example to follow.
* Don’t knock them out from the start
Try to have guests start with the mildest flavors initially, so their palate doesn’t become immediately saturated.
Also, you might think that if one cheese is good, then 10 or 12 cheeses are great, right? No way, Jose. You don’t really need more than four different types (five at most, if you have a crowd). You don’t want to overwhelm anyone’s palate, and besides, who has a board big enough to hold all that? When choosing your cheeses, choose a variety of textures. Include a soft, flowery rind, a semi-hard cheese and a harder, older one. In addition, we recommend choosing cheeses made from different milks: Choose cheeses made from goat’s, sheep’s and cow’s milk, and don’t forget the blends.
*Whose choice?
At parties, you have a lot of predictable foods, and people don’t get too adventurous, but with the cheese board you could try new things and get a little out of the usual comfort zone and that could be a lot of fun. We suggest that instead of taking a “generic Gruyère” off the shelf, you might try to get something a little more original.
*Not having enough knives.
If you can have a separate small knife for each cheese, great, but this is not usually practical, so it’s okay to have one knife for soft items and another for harder items. For soft cheeses, think of one with a thin blade, so you don’t end up losing a ton of sticky cheese stuck to the knife.
*Serving the same board for every occasion.
When you plan to serve your cheese plate, it’s key to choose what goes on it. If your cheese plate is an appetizer, for example, you may want to go lighter with fresh, young cheeses like burrata and berries in the summer or truffle honey in the colder months. If you serve your cheese board for dessert, you can go a little bigger, with peaks like a luxurious triple cream or fudgy blue.