Well, I must confess I’ve never tried blue cheese! I became vegan at around 18 and my palate hadn’t quite ventured into the blue cheese realm back then. (So, there is my confession, upfront and honest...) Friends who’ve tried this cheeze say it’s not really like blue cheese... but they liked it better! They reckon it is softer, more rounded and less sharp. When creating it, I asked Caspar to describe, in-depth, what blue cheese tasted and felt like in your mouth. And blue cheeze does have a similar salty tang and sweet, pungent, earthy flavour. Two ingredients – blue-green algae Blue MajikTM and E3Live® – give the appearance of mould to this cheese and add to the complex punchy flavours, as does the bitter, slightly peppery presence of walnuts. When the cheeze is fermented for more than 12 hours or so, the flavours deepen and mingle and become something akin to a blue cheese. Definitely the talk of the cheeze platter, this is much more palatable than its original inspiration and very worth your while.
Ingredients:
- 1⁄2 cup walnuts, soaked for 3 hours in 1 cup
- Filtered water, rinsed, drained
- Teaspoon (or less) Blue MajikTM*
- Teaspoon (or less) E3Live®*
- 1 teaspoon unpasteurised apple cider vinegar*
- 1⁄4 teaspoon quality salt
- 11⁄2 cups cashews, soaked for 3 hours in
- 11⁄2 cups filtered water, rinsed, drained
- Extra 2 tablespoons unpasteurised apple cider vinegar*
- 3 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons fermented sauerkraut juice (drained from jar of sauerkraut)
- 1 tablespoon cold-pressed olive oil
- 3⁄4 teaspoon onion powder
- 3⁄4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon quality salt
- 1⁄2 teaspoon ground white pepper
- 1⁄2 teaspoon light-coloured miso paste (shiro or genmai miso work well)
- 1 vegan probiotic capsule*
* You’ll find these ingredients at your local Santos Organics store or
online.
Directions:
- Place the rinsed and drained walnuts in a food processor and pulse briefly, just long enough to chop the nuts; don’t over-process.
- Mix the Blue MajikTM, E3Live®, apple cider vinegar and salt together in a medium mixing bowl.
- Stir the chopped walnuts into green mixture.
- Set aside until ready to use.
- Place the rinsed and drained cashews in a clean food processor.
- Add the extra apple cider vinegar, lemon juice, sauerkraut juice, olive oil, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, white pepper and miso.
- Blend, scraping down the sides as needed during processing, until the texture is coarse but not lumpy.
- Spoon the cheeze into a glass bowl.
- If using the probiotic capsule, break open and sprinkle the contents over the top; stir in thoroughly with a non-metallic spoon.
- Loosely fold the walnut mixture into the cheeze, being careful not to over-mix or the green mixture will colour the whole cheeze.
- Spoon the blue cheeze into a 10cm-diameter ring mould.
- Cover with a clean tea-towel or muslin cloth and allow cheeze to sit for a minimum of 1 hour (then remove ring mould) and ideally leave the cheeze to ferment overnight (not in the fridge).
Keeps for 2-3 weeks in an airtight container in the fridge.
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