Recently I saw some goat cheese at the supermarket. Now, I am a little skeptical, seeing how goats have a bad rap for being a garbage disposal on legs.
So any experience with cooking goat cheese?
Goat cheeses are delicious.
I’m guessing the kind you saw at the store was the semi-soft chevre that comes in logs. It’s moist but crumbly, with a not-overpoweringly tangy taste. The mouth feel is a little odd- imagine a textural cross between cream cheese and feta- but it’s so tasty I don’t mind.
I like to put goat cheese on top of thin crust pizzas, in lumps about the size of Brazil nuts, so they bake down a little but don’t entirely cover the sauce. That’s really good with pesto or garlic oil sauce topped with roasted garlic and artichoke hearts. (That was my favorite pizza when I was 7.)
Goat cheese and honey, with or without slivered/sliced almonds, is a yummy sandwich filling. I like it on French bread, but anything works.
The more robust salad leaves (pretty much anything besides iceberg and maybe bibb/butter) get along really well with a mix of goat cheese, almonds or walnuts, and dried fruits.
LOVE goat cheese. Like any type of cheese, it might be mild or it might be quite strong and tangy. All goat cheeses do have a little tang, though.
For the typical log-type, I second the idea of adding to simple pizzas as well as the salad w/ nuts and dried fruit idea – both are excellent. It’s also nice crumbled on pasta, added to an omelet filling, etc. Basically, look at dishes where you crumble feta or grate parmesan and think about using the goat cheese. I don’t care for feta that much, so I often sub goat cheese when a recipe calls for feta.
Another excellent method is to chill the log well and slice into disks, about 1 oz each. Dredge in seasoned bread crumbs and briefly pan-fry. Top a wee salad (lettuce or spinach) with one of these warm, golden rounds. Heaven!
Here’s a great spring/summer dish, where the goat cheese melts to become part of a sauce.
Blunt honesty: The funk associated with goat cheese strongly resembles ammonia and/or urea. That said, I kinda like the stuff, especially mixed with contrasting flavors (like fig jelly).
All food is a little gross when you look at it too closely. Eventually, you get hungry enough to put the microscope away.
do yourself a bit of a favor before you buy any goat cheese…see if you canget a taste of it from the cheeser.
See, some people are very sensitive to the taste of some component in goat products - I am =(
To me, goat products have an overwhelming smell and taste of urine. No idea why, I can do sheep products just fine, but to me anything goat smells so abominibly of goat piss.
Just check first, so you don’t spend money and get an unpleasant surprise.
Try some chevre wherever you can find it - don’t be put off by the poor unfortunates who experience it as tasting horrid - it’s possibly an odd tastebud thing like coriander (cilantro?) is. There’s nothing better than a reeking cheese made from goat milk, if you like cheese, obviously.
Another lover of stinky cheese here, thirding the recommendation to taste first.
Completely fresh goat cheese (for example, Chavroux, which looks like an unequal tetragon with the top chopped off) is fairly inoffensive IMO. Personally, I almost get the most forceful goat vibe from the log-style cheeses. Dairies are also beginning to make goat varieties of normal hard cheeses (like gouda, cheddar and gruyère), and they tend towards the milder end of the spectrum as well (perhaps because you don’t eat as much – have to admit that the usual presentation of a three-inch- wide, half-inch-thick wheel of cheese is more daunting than a thin sliver).
Goat cheese works well together with spinach in pies or sauces, and with beets. Another of my favourite things to do with it is to brush a slice of chèvre with liquid honey and caramelize under the grill or with a blowtorch. Serve with fresh strawberries.
The goat cheeses I’ve had have been pungent, but I don’t know if that’s the goat milk or the way the cheese is made. There’s plenty of pungent cheeses not made out of goat milk.
I think goat milk is excellent but much too expensive.
So what are pigs?
I’ve never found any or the chevre I buy to be smelly. I love to roll the log in Herbs de Provence, drizzle it with olive oil and serve with crackers.
There is also the “feta” side of the street. Cheap feta is salty but can still work as a pizza or salad topping. I generally prefer the Greek to the Danish type. Higher quality feta is not nearly so salty. Feta is relatively hard and crumbles easily.
Note: the best goat cheese I have ever had by far was some fresh stuff at a Tibetan Monastery set in a cave outside of Derong. It was magical.
Personally I find goat cheese to be very nasty-tasting :eek: perhaps I’m just a culinary Philistine.
My girlfriends mother raises Nubian goats. She is constantly experimenting with making different types of cheese.
My favorite is a soft cheese that I believe was similar to Chavroux. Instead of paying 5 dollars for a little triangle I get it by the tupperware full for free. Depending on how it’s made it can range from mild to tangy. Batches for me are made extra tangy with garlic, and seasonings added. Makes great cheese for crackers and delicious stuffed in a chicken breast for cordon blue.
She has also tried Blue Cheese(failure), Pepperjack(Good), Mozzarella(Good) and one I cant remember that was seasoned with dill.
My fav is to take half–thumb sized cubes of goat cheese, roll 'm in a mix of milk/egg, in bread crumbs, repeat, and bake. Eat with any soft fruit jelly with potatoes and a salad.
Take a couple of big handfuls of spinach, wash them and throw them into a hot pot until they shrink and get a little mushy. Mix with the room temperature chèvre until it’s all squishy, then stuff a couple of de-boned chicken breast with it. Tie it and grill about 8 - 10 minutes.
Sounds good, i might try this. 
Amazing goat cheese, fig and parma ham sald:
Ingredients:
Goat cheese (3 slices per person)
Parma ham
Fresh figs (2 per person)
Honey
Rocket, spinach or watercress
Simple dressing: Balsamic vinegar+ olive oil
Method:
Top slices of goat chees with parma ham.
Cut figs in half.
Place cheese and figs under grill (broiler) on a baking tray
Drizzle honey over figs
Grill (broil) until cheese soft, ham crispy, figs warm and honey caramelised.
Place greens on plate
Arrange cheese and figs amongst leaves
Dress salad
Simple, tasty, quick and DELICIOUS as a starter.
Goat cheese tastes terrible, and is really a form of toxic waste. It can only be disposed of by properly qualified personnel.
Stay right where you are, and don’t let anyone touch the goat cheese. I’ll be by as soon as I can to pick it up.
There, that oughta do it.
ETA: Maybe I should put it in ALL CAPS, like FORMERAGENT, to make it look more official…
Bacon repositories? Non-cheese producing animals?
'Nother one I mentioned in some thread here a week ago -
Take some fairly thick slices of prosciutto (about 1/8th of an inch/2mm) and butter them with room temperature chèvre. Salt & pepper optional. Wrap them diagonally around a freshly washed stalk of asparagus. Grill about 5 or 6 minutes. Balsamic vinegar optional.