What is it with me and cheese lately? First, on New Year's Day, an experiment with gougeres (French cheese puffs), which were tasty if a bit deflated. This morning I woke up thinking about two wedges of leftover cheese in the top refrigerator drawer. One was Manchego, the other I have no idea.Inspired by a recent entry on Macheesmo about his homemade cheese straws, I decided to attempt something similar. Snack food for breakfast? Why not?
Cheese straws with smoked salt
makes about 4 dozen small logs
4 Tbsp cold butter, cut into little pieces
1 cup flour
1 1/2 cups (approximately) shredded cheese (I used Manchego and my mystery cheese)
4 Tbsp (approximately) cold water
1 tsp smoked salt
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.
Put the butter and flour in a mixing bowl and rub together with your fingers until the butter is in pea-sized lumps. You don't want it to be uniform; it should have a bit of texture to it.
Mix in the cheese with your hands until it is all coated with the butter-flour mixture.
One tablespoon at a time, add the water, mixing with your hands as you go. When the dough starts to come together, STOP ADDING WATER and squeeze the dough into a ball. You can let the dough rest in the refrigerator at this point, or you can bake it right away.
Roll out the dough (I did this on a piece of parchment paper) and cut into whatever shapes you like. Sprinkle with the smoked salt. Regular coarse salt will work too, of course. Bake on a parchment-lined sheet pan for 8-10 minutes, or until slightly golden on top. Try mightily not to eat all at once (you will fail, as I have).
7 comments:
Hey Erika!
Thanks for mentioning me! This is definitely one of my favorite snack foods. In fact, I just made a batch for football today :)
Cheers,
Nick
http://www.macheesmo.com
I prepared these for breakfast this morning to accompany a Broccoli, Shallot and Fontina Omelet. Very impressive--and so much fun to be making what Erika's making!
I made them this morning too, as part of the elaborate "small plates" dinner party requested by Emery (my 10-year-old as of today!) for his birthday. He doesn't like them, but his friends will. I used pre-shredded grocery store cheddar, though, to save time, and I have to say the results aren't as good. Next time I'll use real cheese.
Oh Erika, this is fabulous!I've been reading through your posts and I haven't had this in a long time!I'd love to guide our readers to your site if you won't mind.Just add your choice of foodista widget to this post and it's all set, Thanks!
Done, Alisa - and thanks for finding me and guiding me into Foodista!
A great way to use manchego in cheese straws or little biscuits is to follow this recipe but add a few anchovies and some stoned, chopped olives. I generally put the whole lot, with butter very cold, in a food processor, which blends in the cheese, anchovies and olives quite nicely. You may need to add a little more flour if the mixture is a bit too wet.
Anchovies and olives - great idea! I've taken to adding crumbled bacon and green onions...heavenly. Thanks for the tip!
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