Cheese of the Week: Le Gruyère

Mmm, Gruyère. A nutty, mild, yet complex cheese, I picked this particular specimen up at Safeway, where it was wrapped in the nondescript “Deli” labelling that you can see to the right. But, as you can tell, unwrapped, by the imprimateur on the rind, above, this is actually a primo Swiss version of “Le Gruyère” — complete with the “AOC” designation that means it was officially produced according to the traditional method.

If I had perhaps deigned to purchase a thicker slice, I might have been able to decipher the actual brand, and been able to offer all my faithful Cheese of the Week readers tons of insight gleaned from fresh Internet searches about the company that produces this wonderful cheese. Alas, searching for “Le Superr…” didn’t come up with much.

(UPDATED: See below!)

No matter!

Forging ahead, I peeled the cheese out of its vacuum pack and let it breathe for a bit on the plate. Paired with knock-off Triscuits, so that the flavour of the cheese would come through as independently as possible, we were unfortunately drinking it with plain water.

From the first, it was obvious that this was a cheese very well-suited to drinking with wine. And, with a wide flavour profile that breaks down slowly in your mouth, I think this would go well with a huge variety of wines. The thing that immediately leaped to mind was a thick, complex red — but upon reflection, I wonder if a sharp, sweet white might do the trick, nicely, too. Perhaps champagne?

Or, if I have the chance, I suspect pairing it with this green-apple-infused beer from Unibroue, Éphémère, would be amazing.

But enough of pairing it with drinks we didn’t have.

What we did have was crackers and cheese. A solid, traditional choice. The knock-off Triscuits, not too salty, actually turned out to be the right choice for sampling this Golidlocks of cheeses. Not oily, but with a sheen; not hard like Parmesan but not soft like Brie; almost crumbly like feta, but still elastic and contained, Gruyère was Just Right.

This Just Rightness seems to apply to everything that goes with this versatile cheese. It can go with foods that are as pungent as onions or as yielding as bread — making it the traditional choice for French Onion Soup, by the way. And it’s also often served on a toasted ham and cheese sandwich.

In fact, everything Mozzarella can do, I’d bet Gruyère can do better. It would be spectacular on a thin-crust pizza with prosciutto and sundried tomatoes, for example.

Gruyère is also noted for its easy-to-melt nature. That’s why — shredded, and with Emmenthal, a bottle of white wine and a hint of kirsch — I made it the centrepiece cheese when I broke out a fondue pot a couple of months ago.

(Thanks to my buddy and co-worker Allison for the picture — I’ll write up a post All About Fondue soon.)

Perhaps the Gruyère isn’t the cheese for everyone. By itself, with simple crackers, it’s an unassuming little dairy product. But that laid-back nature hides a real workhorse. This is a cheese that I’ll be returning to time and time again. I particularly think it will be an active ingredient in baking and other cooking, but don’t shun it on the cheese plates — it’s got hidden depth.

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UPDATE: Thanks to my other buddy and other co-worker Matt, who zoomed in on the cheese label, determined that maybe it was a “B” instead of an “R” and found this site, telling me all I needed to know about my cheese provenance.

Although some of their homepage seems to be improperly configured, I did find a PDF that indicated a premium version of this very same cheese — by this apparently quite well-respected manufacturer — took a gold medal in 2001 in London, at the World Cheese Awards (tragically, only this year and last appear to be up on the World Cheese Awards website).

Cool — found them on a site called Sneako’s Cheese Database, too!

Thanks, Matt!