You spoon this cheese; you do not slice it. A raw sheep's milk so ripe it slumps, a dab of pumpkin or quince marmalade, bread from the same mountains. Animal salt, then mountain sweet. Cooking would be an insult, and a cold wheel is a closed door.
Queijo da Serra da Estrela is the cheese of the central range: ewes' milk, thistle rennet, a rind you open at the top like a drum. In winter it weeps. The marmalade is the mountain's other preserve.
Bring it up from the cold until it gives like a ripe peach. Spoon onto bread, then a little marmalade. Do not spread it like jam; let the two sit together and argue. A glass of Moscatel de Setúbal if the evening has nowhere to be.
Method
- 01
Take the cheese out of the refrigerator well before you need it — an hour, perhaps two, depending on the chill of your kitchen. Queijo da Serra must come up until it slumps; a cold wheel is a closed door. Press the top gently with a finger: it should give like a ripe peach, not bounce like rubber. Patience here is the whole of the cooking.
- 02
If you have a sealed wheel, cut a lid in the top rind, as you would a drum, and lift it off. The paste inside should be ivory and slightly runny, smelling of sheep and cellar. Don't scoop yet — just open it, so it can breathe. If your cheese is already a wedge, simply let the cut face warm until it weeps a little.
- 03
Spoon the pumpkin or quince marmalade into a small dish and set it beside the cheese. The marmalade should be cool, not fridge-cold — you want the sweetness to show, not the chill. Slice the walnut loaf or corn bread and put it within reach. This is a still life, not a recipe, and the arrangement is half the hospitality.
- 04
Give everyone a spoon, and scoop a little of the cheese onto a piece of bread, then a dab of marmalade — animal salt, then mountain sweet. Don't spread it like jam; let the two sit together and argue. Eat at once, while the cheese is still silky. A glass of Moscatel if the evening has nowhere to be.
