Buzz
I take wedge salads seriously, treating every ingredient with the care it deserves. While I don’t mind using pre-packaged bacon bits or crumbled blue cheese, that changes when I make a wedge. I cook and crumble my own bacon, pick fresh chives from my garden, and crumble blue cheese I buy from a quality cheese shop.
The challenge with quality blue cheese—like roquefort, gorgonzola, or cambozola—is that it doesn’t crumble easily. It tends to squish and smear, causing a mess on the cutting board. If you’re a fan of goat cheese, you’ve probably encountered the same issue when crumbling fresh chèvre. Chilling it helps, but the fridge only goes so far. To get your soft cheese to crumble instead of smear, you need to involve the freezer.
This helpful tip comes from a Cook’s Illustrated reader, published in the July/August edition of their print magazine:
Before Seana Monahan from Rocky River, Ohio, crumbles a log of goat cheese, she pops the package into the freezer for a few minutes. The chilled cheese crumbles neatly without making a mess.
The cold firms up the dairy fat, helping it maintain its shape as you break it apart with a fork. (Using a fork rather than your fingers also helps keep the cheese cold, as hands tend to be warm.)
Whether you’re working with a rich blue cheese or a log of chèvre, be sure to only leave it in the freezer for two or three minutes, then allow the cheese to warm up a bit on your salad, fruit platter, or whatever else before eating. While cheese crumbles best when chilled, it tastes best at room temperature. (And taste is always my top priority.)
