Goat cheese, versatile, healthy and delicious

Over the last number of years, goat cheese has increased in popularity. Besides the traditional Dutch and French cheeses, you find goat cheese as well. Goat cheese is healthy, delicious and versatile.

Preparation of goat cheese

Goat cheese is made of goat milk, which is perishable, just like cow milk. Because cheese is tenable for a longer period, large quantities of goat milk are preserved for the fabrication of cheese. This way nothing has to be thrown away. Goat cheese consists of fat, proteins, milk salts. Lactic acid bacteria convert lactose into milk acid, which makes it possible for the cheese substance to arise. Added salt stops the bacteria and helps determine the flavour of the cheese.

Goat milk is transformed into half-hard or fresh cheese in the factory (or farm). The half-hard cheeses are edible within two weeks time and so the process is much quicker than with cow milk based cheeses. After a month, goat milk based cheeses are comparable to an old cheese based on cow milk, in terms of taste. 

Addition?

You can add several herbs to your goat cheese. Sometimes these ingredients are already incorporated in the cheese when you buy ready-made products. These herbs are:

• Chives
• Sellery
• Nettle

How to incorporate goat cheese in a meal?

Salad

These are possible ingredients for a salad with goat cheese:

• Slices of goat cheese (1 cm or 0.4 inches thick)
• Mixed salad
• Truss tomatoes
• Pine nuts
• Green pepper
• Olive oil
• Honey
• Red onion
• Aubergine

Preperation:

Cut the aubergine in thin slices and, together with the slices of goat cheese, lay them in a preheated oven (175 degrees Celsius) for a couple of minutes.

In the mean time, prepare the salad. Add the truss tomatoes, the chopped red onion, a handful of pine nuts and some pieces of cut green pepper. 

Mix it and add the lukewarm aubergine to the salad. Finish with the goat cheese and add a tea spoon of honey. 

Rye bread

Goat cheese and rye bread can be a good combination too. You'll need the following ingredients:

• Slices of goat cheese (max. 0.3 cm or 0.1 inches thick)
• Dark brown rye bread
• Big (biological) tomato 
• Chives
• Pepper
• Olive oil
• Garlic butter

Preperation:

Mix the garlic butter with some olive oil and spread a thin layer of it on the rye bread. Put one slice of goat cheese on the rye bread and press it slightly, so that the goat cheese absorbs the olive oil and garlic butter. Put a slice of the tomato on it (normal large tomatoes are often a bit watery, but biological tomatoes aren't). Then put some fresh chives and pepper on the tomato and finish with another slice of goat cheese. Let it rest for a while so that the flavours get time to mix. Cut it in three or four strips and: bon appetit! 

Sources: www.todio.nl