Have you ever heard of a sheep with a sweet tooth? About 400 of them are grazing in the pastures of the Abitibi region of Quebec. The area's Nordic climate results in pastures with a higher sugar content, and thus sweeter milk from the sheep, which is used to produce an award-winning, firm sheep's milk cheese - Allegretto.
The cheese's fresh, clean aroma and creamy, slightly fruity taste reflect its terroir. It has a mellow overtone, but like a subtle wit, delivers a lovely complexity of flavours that linger on the palate. A nutty flavour and slight tang are prominent closer to the rind and become more noticeable throughout the cheese with age.
Allegretto is pressed cheese (pressing is a process used to expel whey from the curd, which helps to bind it together and create a consistent texture in hard cheeses) that is aged a minimum 120 days to develop its distinctive flavour.
The brownish-beige exterior is patterned with a canvas texture, while the paste (the interior) is pale yellow, darkening toward the edges. While ripening, the exterior of the cheese is washed every two days with brine to develop its natural rind.
Allegretto sheep's milk cheese can be enjoyed as shavings in a salad or grated on top of pasta. (Deborah Baic/The Globe and Mail)
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Allegretto is neither a raw milk nor pasteurized cheese. It falls into a third category of milk treatment known as thermalization. When milk is pasteurized, all bacteria, good and bad, are killed. Thermalization heats the milk to a lower temperature, which destroys most of the potentially bad bacteria but keeps some of the flavour from the beneficial microbes. Any remaining harmful bacteria die off during the aging process. In Canada, a cheese made from raw or thermalized milk cannot be sold younger than 60 days.
Aside from earning a spot on the cheese board, Allegretto is a wonderful cheese to showcase by shaving it on a salad with your best olive oil or melting it into a gourmet grilled cheese on sourdough. When heated, the flavour of Allegretto comes across in full effect.
It also makes a good midnight snack - why fall asleep counting sheep when you can stay awake and sample their wares?
Sue Riedl is part of the pastry team at Toronto's C5 restaurant.
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On the block
CHEESE Allegretto
ORIGIN La Sarre, Que.
PRODUCER La Vache à Maillotte
MILK Thermalized sheep
TYPE Artisanal, firm, pressed cheese with a surface-ripened, natural rind
SHAPE 3.5 kg wheel
FOOD MATCHES An ideal melting cheese, the maker suggests grating it onto hot pasta dishes
NOTES Best lamb's milk cheese and overall silver award in 2004 at Sélection Caseus, Quebec's
annual fine cheese competition
DISTRIBUTORS
Quebec: Le Choix du Fromager,
Les Fromages CDA
Rest of Canada: Provincial
Fine Foods, provincialfine-foods.com
Available
Vancouver: Benton Brothers Fine Cheese, Whole Foods
Market, Les Amis du Fromage
Calgary: Janice Beaton Fine Cheese
Ottawa: Jacobsons Gourmet Concepts
Montreal: Fromagerie du
Marché Atwater
Toronto: All the Best Fine Foods, Thin Blue Line Cheese, Pusateri's
Ontario: Ouderkirk & Taylor
in Guelph; Glenda's at Covent Garden Market in London;
Far Flung Foods in Windsor
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