The next time I decide to start a cookbook challenge during the holiday season- someone please remind me that it’s the holiday season.
Busy-ness aside though, I was determined to not let this week get away without a second recipe from my Woman’s Day Collector’s Cookbook Challenge. I decided to focus on the chapter title Appetizers, because it really is one of the more scary ones in the book. I have to share the first sentence of the introduction to the chapter. James Beard had such a way with words…
Appetizers should tease the eye and taste buds just enough to pique one’s interest in the dinner to follow and never be so heavy and filling that the dull the appetite.
And yet, what I found surprising in this book is that very few recipes call for anything to garnish. As I put my Curried Cheese together, I really wanted to go clip a few frozen herbs to garnish with, but since the recipe didn’t call for it, I left it off completely. My photo is a little lacking, I’m afraid.
However, this recipe is a keeper- with a caveat. You must make this well in advance of when you need the cheese spread. It deepened in both flavor and color when left overnight in the fridge. This was very easy to put together. It called for 1/2 pound of blue cheese to start, which I was instructed to mash with a fork. Well, I didn’t want a full recipe, since I probably wouldn’t have help eating it, so I purchased a 4 ounce tub of bleu cheese crumbles and only had a little work to do with a fork to get the larger crumbled mashed. To the cheese I added 1/2 teaspoon of Sweet Curry Powder (from Penzey’s spices) and 1/4 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce. Then I added a scant 1/4 cup of mayonnaise and mixed it all together.
I immediately dolloped a few of my melba toast rounds and tucked in, and was overwhelmed by the pungent bleu cheese. I could barely discern the curry powder, and the salt I expected from the Worcestershire was missing. I also thought that it really lacked some tang, and figured that when I got it out again, I would add some hot sauce to give it a punch of vinegar. I put the cheese in the fridge and finally came back to it today- two days later. And the result is very, very different.
After a few days to mingle in the fridge the Curried Cheese has a much richer, deeper flavor. The blue cheese is not near so pungent, and the curry has had a chance to open up and meld with everything in the cheese. While it still needs some garnish, the color itself is much more vibrant and more appealing to look at.
As I munched on this piece of toast, I found myself reaching for a second. And then a third. It is quite addictive, and is a combination of flavors that I admit I didn’t expect would work out so well. The perfect garnish for this would be a slice of cherry tomato on top. I think the freshness and fruitiness of a touch of tomato would be the perfect way to cap off this little two-bite morsel.
Like I said before, this one is a keeper, and is something quite unique that I suspect has not been making the party rounds as of late. In fact, you might pull this out for a holiday family gathering and surprise an older relative who remembers making such a creation “back in the day”. It might be a fun trip down memory lane for the whole family. Definitely different from your standard cheese ball and cheese spread assortment, I definitely recommend you give this one a whirl if you have any kind of fondness for bleu cheese.
Curried Cheese
The cheese is blue cheese.
1/2 pound blue cheese 1 teaspoon curry powder 1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire Mayonnaise Melba toast roundsMash cheese thoroughly. Add curry powder and Worcestershire, and enough mayonnaise to hold all together and form spreading consistency. It should be quite firm. Spread on Melba toast rounds. Makes about 1 cup.