Smoked White Wensleydale Cheese

This is stunningly superb. It's GREAT. My MIL is from an area very close to Wensleydale (just one ridge and a moor away) and she knows all about how Wensleydale cheese should taste.

She also has stated that mine is better than any she's had in the last 80 years. No, she doesn't have dementia! I make very good white wensleydale (ww).

And I also like to experiment...

In the kitchen, duh. Harumph!

The last cheese round of ww I made was three and a half pounds. Not too bad from starting with 5 litres of milk. Anyways, the other night there was just a bit left and I happened to have some red gum wood chips soaking for the smoker.

"Hmmmmmm," thought YT (Yours Truly, me), "I wonder what ww will taste like when smoked?" YT also deduced that, "dang, I'd better put a piece of foil on the rack of the smoker otherwise it'll drip down and be ruined."

To cut a long story short (trust me, I can make this very long), here's what you do when smoking a soft cheese.

Slice your soft cheese to about one cm thick (use a wire cutter). Lay the cheese slices on your smoker rack that has aluminium foil over it. Smoke for 15 mins, then flip the slices and smoke for a further 15 minutes.

Note: the cheese slices will be very soft. If you can't flip them without the slices falling apart, then just lay a piece of foil over the top and flip with your hands on each side. Peel off the old bottom layer before smoking for the last 15 mins, of course.

You can use this in many different ways. The cheese is very soft when it first comes off the smoker so you can use it as a spread before it cools. The other night I spread it on some garlic bread... mmmmmmmmmmmmmm; Ambrosia!

If you can restrain yourself from eating it all in one day, then you'll find it ages quite well and firms up nicely. I like to let the slices age overnight on a rack and then the next day wrap them in grease-proof cooking paper and toss them in the fridge. They are seriously good after a week or so.

Hey, give it a go! You never know till you try. I'd try this with any soft cheese, should be darned tasty with a nice, firm bleu.

Marinated, Smoked, Tofu

Mmmmmmmm, yummy! I loves me some tofu. It's great to cook with cus it takes up the flavourings of whatever you're cooking. So now it's time to do something with tofu by itself.

I was inspired to do this when WP (Wifey-Poo) and I picked up some seasoned tofu on a quick sale at a grocery store. It was very tasty. Very, very tasty. Obviously, I had to come up with something to make a reasonably close facsimile.

It worked.

Very well!

Now, you'll need a smoker for this. If you don't have a smoker, then it is very easy to make one. One large wok (steel, non-coated), large wire bread rack, top of a large turkey roaster, and some foil. Oh, and wood chips. I use red gum since it's plentiful down here in Oz, but in the US you can get hickory and maple wood chips easily.

Do I really need to tell you how to put it together? No, didn't think so. The foil is used over the top of the wire rack if you are smoking something soft, like cheese or tofu.

Here's a pic of my setup:



I purposefully used a rectangular lid on a circular wok so that heat dissipates so the food only gets smoked, and not baked. Soaked woodchips go in the bottom of the wok and the wok gets set onto the side burner of you OUTDOOR barby. Don't do this indoors.

Here's what you need:


One block of FIRM tofu

For the marinade:
1/2 cup light soy sauce
dash of dark soy sauce
splash of fish sauce
1 tsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 tsp ginger powder
1/2 tsp cardamon powder
1/4 tsp cinnamon powder
pinch of chilli powder
1/4 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 cup water
1/4 cup port (or sherry or sake or mirin)


What you do:

To make the marinade, add all the marinade ingredients to a bowl and whisk the heck out of it till the sugar is dissolved.

Now you get to cut the tofu. I use a wire cheese slicer for cutting tofu. If you use a knife there is a very good chance you'll pulverise your tofu, make a big mess, and then curse the day you started reading my food blog. So just use a wire! You'll get four equal blocks from a piece of firm tofu.

I even have pictures to show you the cutting process so I don't have to explain it!




That's a nice, smooth cut!




These are the sizes you'll end up with --you'll get four of them.


I had to slice one of the four pieces in half in order to get them all to fit in the bowl with the marinade.


Next time I'll do the ole plastic bag marinade thingy so I have four equal sized pieces.

Let it marinate for 2 hours. Now's a good time to get your woodchips soaking in some water. You'll want enough chips to keep your smoker smoking for 30 mins.

*two hours go by*

Ok, drain the woodchips and put them in the bottom of you wok. Turn your gas burner heat to LOW, put the wire rack over the wok, lay a piece of aluminium foil on top of the rack.

Go inside and get the bowl with the tofu.

Place the tofu pieces on the foil (which is on the wire rack, which is in turn resting on the wok, and the wok is over the lit burner) and put the lid on.

In a few mins your smoker will start to smoke.

30 minutes later, turn the burner off.

Eat the tofu.

It won't last long, very very very tasty!

Don't forget to save the marinade, it has many uses.