How Cheesemongers Pair Cheese with Nuts
Cheese and nuts photo credit Depositphotos
There are a handful of familiar foods that go with cheese the way peanut butter goes with jelly. Chief among those foods are nuts. So why are nuts such a great partner for cheese?
“It works on so many levels, from science to sensory,” says Jordan Edwards, a cheesemonger with Murray’s Cheese @ Kroger in Seattle, Wash. “One of the most common descriptors of cheese that you hear is ‘nutty’ and there are esters and compounds that are common in both cheese and nuts that relate to the aromas.”
Edwards, a three-time Cheesemonger Invitational Competitor and 2017 Champion, uses a variety of nuts, seeds, legumes, and other ingredients when making cheese plates and boards.
Pairing Strategies
Sweet & Savory
Crunchy textural contrast
Visual complexity
Jordan Edwards
“I like to use peanuts and add flavor to them,” he says. “I’ve paired Gruyere with fish-sauce candied peanuts, using fish sauce, lime zest and chili flakes. You have the sweet and savory elements on the outside and the savory peanut inside.”
While nutty flavors resonate with the taste of cheese, texture also comes into play with what we might call the crunch factor.
“I think the reason people enjoy nuts with cheese more than anything is texture,” says Jen Lopez, senior manager of business development at Forever Cheese, a company that brings cheese and related gourmet foods from the Mediterranean region to the rest of the world. “With cheese, longer aged even, what you get is creaminess and richness and you are wanting variety on your pallet, so a nut just immediately adds that extra texture. You always want to have that crunchy texture. The worst thing is for a nut to be soggy.”
One more reason to include nuts with cheese is their ability to add visual complexity.
“I’m an admirer of the visually stunning, colorful, gorgeous psychedelic cheese plates that have, say in the last ten years, brought so many people to cheese,” Lopez says. “Nuts are always a part of that. It’s a way of visually breaking up the sea of just cheese. Even when entertaining for myself and a couple other people at home, when I want to keep things very simple, I almost always include a nut.”
Edwards includes pistachios and pistachio paste in his creations, for their flavor and their color. He also uses soft-shelled whole almonds to make a cheese plate more interactive and reminds the customer of the labor involved in growing and harvesting nuts.
Marcona Almonds and More
Mitica Marcona almonds
One would be hard-pressed these days to find a cheese shop that does not include Marcona almonds as an accompaniment to cheese. The Marcona is a distinctive almond grown only in Spain. It is plump and sweet, with a texture reminiscent of a macadamia nut. Most often you will find them fried in sunflower oil and lightly salted. They offer a mild richness and a notable snappy crunch that makes them perfect for cheese boards and simple cheese snacking.
Forever Cheese has been importing Mitica brand Marconas and other nuts for many years, and more recently added a number of flavors in bulk and retail packaging. Valencia almonds also from Spain, are quite similar to Marconas. Current flavored variations from Mitica include Truffle, Lemon, Ginger, and “Sizzling Hot” Spicy Marconas, Marconas with skins, and Rosemary Valencias, in addition to the popular skinned and fried Marconas. Mitica also produces caramelized pecans and walnuts, and piedras (nuts enrobed in chocolate and dusted with cocoa powder) and mocha pecans which are like piedras, with a touch of coffee added to the sweet complexity.
Jen Lopez
In selling the Mitica candied nuts, Lopez challenges customers to think of making them at home and trying to get that perfect crunch, without a heavy coating of sugars, knowing they will find that it is not so easy.
“Our producers are just masters at this,” she says. “So throughout the years they have been top sellers, year-round, not just during the holidays.”
Douro Almonds
A nut that Lopez feels has been under the radar is the Douro almond from Portugal. “That is, I think the most under-utilized nut in our portfolio, she says. “It’s almost never bitter, with a nice sweetness. The texture of that nut is SO crunchy, I can’t get enough of them.” And the price is quite a bit lower than that of Marconas, which are famously expensive.
Mitica Piri Piri Cocktail Mix
As far as price point goes, it’s hard to beat the Spanish cocktail mix that includes a savory, salted mix of nuts, dried legumes and dried corn. Lopez says it was the product that launched the Mitica line in the states, and just earlier this year, the brand introduced a spicy Piri-Piri cocktail mix. Quicos, giant dried corn kernels, are the inspiration of the ubiquitous American snack brand Beer Nuts. Mitica offers quicos in straight salted flavor and a spicy version, PicaQuicos.
Classic & Unexpected Nut & Cheese Pairings
Blue cheese and walnuts
Walnuts with English blue Stilton are a marvelous flavor match, and Marcona almonds are famously paired with aged Manchego and other great Spanish cheese neighbors. But experts say it’s really hard to find a bad paring when it comes to cheese and nuts. Edwards likes to depart occasionally from roasted and fried nuts and just go with raw examples. He also has been keen recently on apricot kernels from the Ziba Foods. The kernels are extracted from the stones of apricots, in a fashion that is quite similar to the way almonds are harvested. Technically almonds are a fruit and the almond we use as food is the kernel seed.
Ziba Sweet Apricot Kernels
“l like apricot kernels with Manchego 1605,” Edwards says. “The kernels have a delicate vanilla sort of perfume to them that goes nicely with sheep’s milk cheeses. And with the1605, the milk is so precise and clean, so together it kind of pulls that forward.” Read more about Manchego 1605.
Alex Armstrong
Ziba Foods offers dried fruit and combinations of fruits, nuts, kernels and regional spice blends from Afghanistan. Alex Armstrong a Certified Cheese Professional, is a product specialist representing cheeses from Maker to Monger, a selection of exceptional cheeses imported by Columbia Cheese. He recently collaborated with Ziba Foods for some perfect pairings. His curated pairings included raw almonds with Alp Blossom, the Austrian Alpine cheese adorned with herb and edible flowers.
Gurbandi Almond Alp Blossom credit Alex Armstrong _ Maker to Monger for Ziba Foods
“The herbal character from that herbal/floral mixture was drawn out by the raw almond,” Armstrong says. In the selection he also puts pecorino Sardo with sweet apricot kernels, and baby pistachio kernels with a firmer Raclette. Ziba’s Shakhurbai dry roasted almonds are matched with OG Aged Goat Gouda. “This cheese adds another layer of sweetness as well as a light almondine aroma that compliments the Shakurbai almonds,” Armstrong notes.
As with other pairing equations, flavor intensity should be taken into consideration, but Edwards says that there is no need to be overly cautious. “Sometimes we overlook spicy with super butter bomb cheeses,” he says “Like Buffalo wings dipped in ranch dressing, you can do Delice with spicy quicos.”
Edwards and Armstrong also note that roles can be reversed, so that cheeses can become ingredients in nut-centric creations. Armstrong likes to grate goat Gouda onto baked dishes that showcase nuts.
Locally produced nuts can easily be found in specialty shops, grocery stores and at farmers markets. Specializing in candied pecans, Fortune Favors of Milwaukee points out on its website that not all candied nuts are the same, and that a little bit of sweet goes a long way: Unlike traditional candied pecans that can be up to 50% sugar by weight, Fortune Favors pecans contain only 7% sugar, allowing the natural flavor of the pecans to shine through. Fortune currently offers five flavors of sweet and spiced candied pecans that are all vegan, Non-GMO and gluten free. They are availability in cheese shops and in national chains including Whole Foods Markets.