Blue cheese—love it or hate it?

Some people love it, others detest it. There’s no in-between with this strong-flavored cheese. But blue cheese is a generic term for any cheese with blue veins in it. These veins are caused by the mold or fungus, penicillium--sometimes infused into the cheese, other times from the soil in the area where the cheese is produced. The cheese is often said to be an anti-inflammatory.

This generic terms encompasses several kinds of cheeses, and they come from several countries. Some of the most common you may have heard of are Gorgonzola, Stilton, and Roquefort. Gorgonzola is from northern Italy and is made from unskimmed cow’s milk—it tends to be buttery, salty, and can be crumbly or firm. Some people believe that it is milder than, say, Roquefort. I know a man who detests blue cheese but will eat Gorgonzola—go figure!

Stilton is the English contribution to the blue cheese world. Only cheese made in three counties in England can be labeled Stilton—Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire. It typically has a strong taste and is crumbly. It is made by piercing holes in the rind of a cylinder of cheese and allowing the air in.

Roquefort, made from sheep’s milk, is France’s contribution to the label. True Roquefort must be aged in the caves of the Roquefort area of France, where there is penicillium in the soil. It is tangy, crumbly, and slightly moist.

In our supermarkets, particularly upscale, we see a dizzying variety of blue cheese, many domestic. One of my favorites is Maytag—yes, the people who make washing machines. Another popular one is Point Reyes. But you simply must experiment until you find the one whose taste most pleases you. You usually can buy a block of cheese or crumbles—I much prefer the block, which will keep longer. I don’t know this, but I suspect crumbles are what’s left from cutting blocks or wedges out of the original wheel. With crumbles, you are usually offered only a generic blue cheese.

There are countless ways to use blue cheese:

Crumbled in a salad

Put a dab of honey on an apple or pear slice topped by a small piece of blue cheese

Melt a small chunk top of a steak or lamb chop us before serving

Stir a modest amount into your next chicken salad

Make a post-Thanksgiving sandwich of turkey, lettuce, mayo, and blue cheese

Use as the base for a good stuffing for a chicken breast or hamburger.

Here’s a simple dressing that’s great for a wedge salad or a tossed salad—or used as a dip.

Creamy blue cheese salad dressing

2 Tbsp. each mayonnaise, sour cream, and buttermilk

            Note: you can substitute plain Greek yogurt for sour cream

1 tsp. lemon juice (or lime juice)

¼ tsp. pepper

¼ tsp. Kosher salt

1 anchovy filet, mashed (optional)

Blue cheese – crumbled, 2-3 Tbsp. to taste

1 finely chopped scallion

Diced tomato (for garnish)

Crumbled bacon (for garnish)

Mix mayonnaise, sour cream, buttermilk, lemon juice, anchovy, salt and pepper adding cheese last. If dressing is too thick, sparingly add more buttermilk. For wedge salad, reserve the green onion. Top a lettuce wedge—or layers of lettuce—with the dressing and garnish with crumbled bacon, diced tomato, and green onion

Creamy blue cheese dip

To use the recipe above as a dip, simply add more buttermilk to reach the consistency you want. You may not need any additional thinning. Don’t let it get too runny, so that it drips off the chip. Mash the blue cheese crumbles with a fork so that they blend into the dip, rather than remaining unmanageable chunks.

Top with green onion which serves as garnish and adds a nice, crisp zing but is still easy to manage with a potato chip. Serve with crudities or good potato chips—I really like Trader Joe’s potato chips.

Those ubiquitous green salads

For most of my life, I considered a green salad an essential ingredient of a meal, and I made them the way my mom did: put chopped tomatoes, scallions, maybe red onion, whatever else in the bottom of a wooden bowel (always unfinished wood), season with salt, pepper, garlic, whatever and toss. Mom was creative--sometimes there's be avocado, frequently blue cheese, sometimes parmesan for variety; she went through one spell of using smoked salt until I think we both overdid it. But you put the lettuce (preferably home-grown) in at the last minute and tossed it with vinaigrette--a standard homemade dressing but in those days we didn't use olive oil--always Mazola, which she claimed was healthy. We never had head lettuce, let alone a wedge with Thousand Island (never saw that in my house though occasionally I like it now as a topping on an open-faced sandwich--but I make my own--never comes out that same way twice).
In recent years I've grown tired of the usual tossed salad and stopped fixing them. But three salads remain favorites:

The first is wilted lettuce, for which you need very fresh leaf lettuce. Fry some bacon (maybe two pieces per person), drain and reserve grease. Heat together about equal parts bacon grease and cider vinegar; just before serving, pour hot mixture over the greens (not so much that you drown them) and crumble bacon over it.

The second salad is Jordan's to make whenever I cook dinner and salad is on the menu. Rub a wooden bowl thoroughly with a cut garlic clove; then with salt, pepper, and dry mustard (Jordan sometimes has a heavy hand and gets the dressing a bit stout); pour some vinegar in the bottom of the bowl--and here I'm lost for measurements. Not too much, because you'll need to add 1/3 again that much olive oil--if you end up with too much dressing, refrigerate; it keeps. Crumble blue cheese into vinegar and whisk with a fork until it's a fairly smooth mixture. Add olive oil and whisk again. This can be done a bit ahead but not too far because you don't want that good wooden bowl to soak up all your dressing. Tear lettuce leaves and toss just before serving. I suppose you could add croutons--we never do since Jordan is perpetually on a no-carb diet.

And the third: an overnight salad I have in the fridge right now. I get the recipe from a neighbor who

got it from a friend, but I feel like it's mine now since I've made it several times. Today I made it early this morning, so by supper it will have been refrigerated overnight. This is the salad before tossing.
You need:

3 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice
9 Tbsp. olive oil
6 green onions, chopped
1 tsp. seasoned salt (I used regular salt)
4-6 cloves garlic, minced--I mashed four because I don't like finding little bits of garlic in my mouth, and I don't mince well
2 avocados, peeled and cut into chunks
I head romaine
3/4 c. grated Parmesan

Use a 9x13 glass baking dish (never metal or aluminum), combine lemon juice, oil, onions, salt and garlic. Add avocado chunks and stir until all is coated well. Tear romaine and layer on top of mixture. Cover with Parmesan. DO NOT STIR AT THIS POINT.
Seal tightly with plastic wrap--I used two layers and then a layer of foil--and refrigerate. Stir just before serving. Left is the salad on a pate after tossing, with meatloaf and corn casserole.

And these days, I kind of like a wedge of head lettuce, with a blue cheese/tomato/bacon dressing. But it's not as healthy as the salads above. Okay, maybe wilted lettuce isn't too healthy.