Potted Cheese with Toast

Like me, you are probably more familiar with the phrases Potted Beef or Potted Shrimp than Potted Cheese. ‘Potting’ ingredients is a traditional way of stretching ingredients with butter while adding flavours and it can be  done with a good cheese in the same way as it can with meat or fish. These days it is a great way of doing  something different with your cheeseboard and also linking the beer you’re drinking to the food you’re eating.

Ingredients

350g Yorkshire Blue cheese (Stilton or any other strong, crumbly cheese can be used)
75g unsalted butter (at room temperature and cut into cubes)
½ teaspoon ground mace
3 tablespoons Beer

Method

Ingredients

Crumble the cheese in a mixing bowl before adding the butter and spices and creaming with a spoon until the mixture is fairly smooth. Gradually add the beer, beating in each addition, until the mixture has the texture of a thick paste. This paste should be spooned into your serving/storage pot and smoothed off. The mixture needs to be left for a good few hours in the fridge before being served. The longer you leave it the more the beer will infuse with the cheese and the flavour will develop. It can be stored for a couple of weeks by sealing the top of the pot with some melted butter although these days there’s little reason to do this and making it with fresh ingredients on the day is probably the best course of action.

Mixing it up

I originally used Chimay Red in making this dish but did further tests with Old Hooky and Orval. I do think it lends itself quite well to Trappist beers and the Orval was the best in my opinion. You could equally use your own favourite ale and see how it goes, another one that I would like to try would be Badger’s Poacher’s Choice.

Serve by placing the pot in the middle of the table with some plain crackers, toast (as pictured) or some crusty bread and of course a glass of whichever beer you have chosen to make it with.

I’m in charge of beer and cheese, after picking some fancy samples at Lincoln Christmas Market earlier this month.

So I’m basically just looking for suggestions, as tomorrow I’m off to Beer Ritz to purchase the beers and on the way back stopping at Leeds Markets for the cheese.

Cheeses I have so far:

White Stilton Strawberries and cream – I’m thinking a strawberry Belgian beer

Yorkshire Black - a local Yorkshire beer?

Maplewood Smoked (just like Applewood smoked really) – a smoky porter or Rauchbier

Lancashire Apple, Raisin and Cinnamon – I’m stumped on this one!

I also have a bottle of aged Orval, but I’m greedily undecided as to whether I’m willing to share this with anyone!

Cheese selection at Lincoln Christmas Market. The difficult bit will be finding beers to accompany all of these!

Over recent years the population has generally become more environmentally aware and there has been a reversion to locally, even self, produced goods. Allotments and home brew, 20 years ago the reserve of only my Granddad, are now fashionable amoung younger portions of the population. This has in turn helped the resurgence of real ales for younger generations as well.

A little over 250 years ago in 1751 the artist William Hogarth released a pair of works titled Gin Lane and Beer Street. When viewed in conjunction with each other, the works sought to illustrate the advantages, to both the individual and society as a whole, of drinking British beer rather than imported Gin. Remember this was an age when water in London was unsafe and the brewing process provided some degree of sanitization. In an era when water could kill you, the benefits of drinking fluids that had been processed were obvious.

The link below take you to the British Museum’s page on Beer Street and Gin Lane so you can take a look for yourself if you are not familiar with the works…

British Museum – Gin Lane & Beer Street

So why do I bring this up here? The point I want to make is of course not that we should all be drinking beer rather than water in our day to day lives. Rather I want to highlight the potential of our own, British produced, drinks which could be used when entertaining in favour of foreign imports. I know that we regularly review non British beers and am not for one minute advocating a British only standpoint, this would surely only limit ones experience and I think everything should be tried so that people can find what they enjoy.

What I fear is often forgotten is the diversity of beers, ciders and lagers that are available, and how each these can compliment different circumstances and events. You will often see in my reviews that I state what I am drinking a beer with or the circumstances in which I feel it will be appropriate. I am therefore always on the lookout for recipes and suggestions of which beers are appropriate for certain meals. Is it possible that there will be a time when Real Ales are matched and drunk with meals in the same way as fine wines? I certainly hope so.

It is therefore always a great joy to me when I find an old recipe book with beer based recipes in a second hand bookshop or when I stumble across a datbase such as the one on the Hall and Woodhouse website, giving suggestions for food and recipes to enjoy with their different beers…

Hall and Woodhouse Recipes Database

I hope you enjoy these as much as I intend to.