Our "Iron Chef" battle turned out to be more of a laid back dinner party celebrating the many splendid sides of cheese. Heather graciously hosted in her Harlem apartment, Laura, Emily W., my brother and I rounded out the little group.
Heather prepared a delicious, light herbed ricotta with toasted baguette which we munched on as we caught-up and I fired-up the grill (well, grill pan) for our "Grilled Cheese Four Ways".
My brother suggested we pair a variety of cheeses with interesting accompaniments and grill them. Why not? We prepared a Mountain Blue Gorgonzola slathered in fig preserves on a grilled country white bread; a Swiss and fresh smoked ham with a lingdonberry mustard; fresh Mozzarella and tomato on grilled green olive bread and drizzled with balsamic; and a sweet goat's milk cheese with lamb pastrami on rye. Of these, the favorite was definitely the Gorgonzola-fig grilled cheese; the sweetness of fig cutting through a pungent blue cheese creates a luscious balance.
We then sliced into Emily's Pizza Rustica. It was an incredibly tender, flavorful pie layered with procutto, ricotta and egg, Parmesan, mozzarella and salami? (I'm sure Emily will correct me on that last ingredient!) It was so rich, yet light and airy; the perfect spring pie!
Next Laura began heating her Cheddar-Beer soup with homemade Cheddar croutons. Despite the image of "Nacho Cheese" the name conjured-up for Emily, the soup was rather light. It was creamy and delicious, with the beer piercing through the cheese and cream and the Cheddar croutons adding a nice crunch.
The grand finale was Heather's Four Cheese Risotto. She used (again, please correct me if I mess this up!) Parmesan, Mozzarella, Pecorino and Mountain Gorgonzola. The blue added a real complexity to the flavor, and though she felt it was a bit overdone, I thought it still had a nice bite to it.
All in all, our feast was a delicious excursion into the land of cheese! I think we all staggered off into the beautiful spring night in something of a cheese stupor. Hopefully there will be many more delicious "battles" to come!
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