Say “Italian Cheese” for Your Woodfired Outdoor Cookery

Cooking with an authentic, artisan-manufactured Valoriani wood-fired pizza oven is a way to connect with a generations-old culinary tradition in the Italian region of Tuscany (Toscana).  But so too is using some of the cheeses that have made Italian cuisine so celebrated.  

This International Cheese Day (June 4), Orchard Ovens, the UK supplier of Valoriani woodburning ovens for domestic gardens and households, and commercial premises too, produced this quick guide to Italian cheeses.  Use it as a reference point when planning dishes for your woodfired pizza (and more) parties, or your restaurant menu.

Across Italy, Valoriani wood ovens are used for the preparation of a wide variety of dishes.  Some of these are the main menu event for the family get-together – an often languid occasion playing out over many hours amidst the olive groves or in an idyllic coastal garden.  Others are  served alongside side dishes (contorni) that can complement the oven’s offerings.  Italian cheeses can be used in both main and side dishes and help you demonstrate to your pizza party guests that you really know your onions when it comes to Italian cheeses.

Let’s take a look at some of the options you might wish to select, to impress your al fresco guests.

Taleggio

Taleggio takes its name from the Val Taleggio where it was first produced and is a fine example of artisan-made produce from the Lombardy and Piedmont regions in Italy’s north.  This semi-soft cheese is a pale yellow and cream-coloured delight (sometimes even bone white), now afforded Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status.  Typically sporting an orange or pinkish-brown crust, both thin and edible, it comes with a strong aroma but fairly mild, buttery flavour, punctuated by a fruity tang. 

This cheese is produced in the autumn and winter months, by mixing acidified milk with rennet.  Milk is poured into square blocks, laid out on a table, so as to produce the distinctive shaping associated with Taleggio cheese.  The square blocks are placed on shelves within chambers or caves and regularly turned, to distribute the salt.  Mould growth is prevented by weekly washing with a seawater sponge – something that contributes to the orangey, coarse crust’s development.  During its creation, five different moulds are actually encouraged, to produce Taleggio’s distinctive red smear. 

Taleggio cooked in your wood-fired oven

Taleggio is fantastic in a pasta sauce, or something such as a pumpkin and Taleggio risotto.  It also makes a wonderful cheese sauce to serve with broccoli.  But why not bake a Taleggio, vegetable and almond tart in your wood-fired oven?  Just use aubergine, tomatoes, courgette, garlic, red pepper and onions, to provide the vegetable element and make the most of ready-made puff pastry.

Fontina

The Aosta Valley is the spiritual home of Fontina – a semi-soft cheese made with cow’s milk.  The popularity of this cheese has spread worldwide, but the Fontina produced in the Italian Alpine regions has PDO status.  Mild, with a buttery and slightly nutty taste, sometimes even woody or with a hint of mushroom, this cheese is ideal for melting, cooking or using on a charcuterie board.  That makes it as perfect for fondues as for risottos.

The cheese is pale inside, with a natural tan or orange rind.  The interior is riddled with holes, almost looking like little eyes peeping out – the end result of months of maturing in caves or mountain crevices.  

Cook up a pasta or rice dish in the oven, or a bake that would benefit from a gratin of cheese over the top and Fontina could be a great choice.

Gorgonzola

You are probably very familiar with this blue-green cheese made from unskimmed cow’s milk but did you know that it originates from the Piedmont and Lombardy regions in northern Italy.  In fact, it shares its name with the Milanese town of Gorgonzola and that’s why there is an annual Gorgonzola festival there, in September each year.  

Gorgonzola can come as dolce – with a delicate flavour – or piccante.  The latter is fuller-flavoured and can actually be quite tangy, pungent or even sharp.  The difference between these two types is the length of time that the cheese has been allowed to mature.  Both varieties can be quite salty to taste.

Gorgonzola dishes for your wood fired oven

Gorgonzola is fabulous when paired with something like leek and walnut, whether you do that in a pasta, using a pasta variety such as orzotto or penne, or a bake.  But why not bake some butternut squash wedges in your wood-fired oven and then serve those, with all their delicious slightly smoky flavour, with a Gorgonzola butter and walnuts?  Sprinkle with fresh herbs and it will be amazing. Prefer a sauce to a butter?  What’s stopping you?  Just use Gorgonzola as its base.

Pecorino

This 100% ewe’s milk cheese is often used as an alternative to Parmigiano and originates from Sardinia and Lazio, taking its name from the Italian word for sheep (pecora).  Pecorino (Romano) is the cheese used in the very Roman dish of Cacio e Pepe – pasta served with a coating of creamy Pecorino and pepper.

This cheese has a granular texture and is usually hard and crumbly, making it perfect for grating.  Strong and salty, with nutty undertones too, it can be shaved, sliced, or melted to perfection, being as wonderful for diners digging into a charcuterie board or salad, as those who get to experience it over soup, pasta (it’s also well-used in Pasta alla Gricia, Pasta alla Norma and pasta carbonara dishes) or risotto.  

Wood-fired dishes using Pecorino

Once a staple of Roman soldiers, this versatile pale yellow or golden cheese can become a favourite at your wood-fired oven parties.  Why not fire up your Valoriani pizza oven and cook a cheesy courgette bake using Pecorino Romano, or an aubergine parmigiana, substituting Pecorino for parmesan?

Asiago

Northern Italy is the birthplace of this rich, reasonably strong and nutty-flavoured, semi-hard cheese, bursting with richness and creamy depth.  Fresh slices of Asiago are a delight on any salad or piece of freshly baked bread, but this cheese also cubes and melts brilliantly.

This is a cow’s milk cheese from the Veneto and Trentino regions of Northern Italy, although it originally utilised sheep’s milk.  How your Asiago appears on a plate will depend upon its age.  Fresh Asiago can be smooth, whilst aged Asiago is crumbly.  Either way, it will usually come with small holes and, if an authentic product of its region, will have a DOP marking impressed into it.

Ever tried cooking a frittata in your wood-fired oven?  Well, a vegetable frittata with Asiago cheese might be just the ticket.  Otherwise, why not combine Asiago, turkey mince, spinach, onion and garlic, to create meatballs with a difference that can be rustled up in your wood oven?

Cacioricotta

Cacioricotta is a cheese typically found in Italy’s south, specifically Apulia and Salento, where it is a product of excellence.  You may also discover it in other nearby regions, such as Campania, Molise, Abruzzo, Calabria and Basilicata but there it will take on slight differences.

Usually, this is a goat or sheep’s milk cheese, although it is not unknown for cow or water buffalo milk to be used.  It is a halfway house between cheese and ricotta, in both its taste and consistency, and a cheese that retains all of its proteins within one single product thanks to the unique production method.

This involves boiling the milk at around 90°C and then allowing it to cool to 38-40°C.  At this point, rennet is added to a liquid that has curd, casein and albumin integrated within.  What results is a cheese that is milk, tangy and slightly salty to the taste.  

How can cacioricotta be use in a wood-fired dish?

It’s often served with pasta varieties such as orecchiette and triilli but would be fantastic as a topping over wood-fired oven-cooked aubergines and a green bean salad.  Just sprinkle a bit of basil and this can be perfection on a plate.

Burrata

Largely a cow’s milk cheese (though sometimes water buffalo milk), Burrata is very creamy cheese that is best-served very quickly after it’s been opened.  It is a cheese made from both cream and mozzarella and one with a soft heart.  Whilst its exterior casing is solid, it positively oozes once its top-knot-style pouch is split.

This product of Puglia is associated with the town of Andria and has origins stretching back to around 1900. Rennet is used to curdle warm milk before fresh mozzarella curds are pushed into hot whey and then formed into pasta filata (elastic strings) and shaped.  A pouch is filled with hot cheese, scraps of mozzarella and fresh cream, before it is closed up and usually wrapped in asphodel.  The pouch is kept moist with whey, during the cheese’s development phase.

Burrata on your wood-fired oven menu

If you want to combine Burrata into your wood-fired oven menu, try roasting some peaches or nectarines and then topping them with the creamy cheese.  Alternatively, just use it as a topping for a lovely fresh salad that can be served with a pasta dish, tart or roasted meat.  It works as brilliantly with beetroot as it does with artichoke hearts.

Scamorza

Finally, our review of cheeses takes us to the south of Italy, to uncover a stretched-curd cheese that you can usually distinguish thanks to its pear or tear-shaped form.  Scamorza is a mild, slightly sour cheese in its bianca form but can also come in a smoked (affumicata) form, that is slightly sweeter, with a hint of caramel.

Originating in the Apulia and Calabria regions, this typically white cheese is made with cow’s milk and, once the curd has matured in its whey, is hung to dry in its shaped form.  It is often seen as an alternative to mozzarella, with its smooth, springy and elastic texture, and is very widely used within Neapolitan dishes. 

Wood-fired Scamorza dishes

Scamorza can be eaten fresh, grilled or incorporated into hot dishes.  You could simply bake it on its own and serve with bruschetta, or pair it with prosciutto and arugula on top of a pizza.  Its great in a butternut squash and sage risotto, or you could use it with pasta or gnocchi within a bake.  

Using Italian cheeses within wood-fired cookery

There are so many ways in which to use these fantastic cheeses within your woodfired oven culinary repertoire and all are likely to impress your dinner guests, whether you are dining outdoors or indoors.  Remember that your wood fired Valoriani oven can pretty much be used all year round, if the weather gods are reasonably kind, so your Italian cheeses could be used in a wide variety of heartier bakes, fondue-style and potato dishes in the winter and in lighter pizza, risotto pasta and gnocchi dishes in summer.

To find out more about the Valoriani ovens that can work in harmony with this array of Italian cheeses, call us on 07743 847647.  Whether you want a ready-to-go oven that could be lit and up-and-running within hours, or a built-in oven, either in a simple surround or a full outdoor kitchen display, the team at Orchard Ovens can assist.

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Editors notes

Orchard Ovens is the domestic and commercial pizza oven supplier in the UK of Valoriani, based in Reggello, Tuscany - the manufacturer of Italy's hugely respected Valoriani pizza ovens, known as the Maserati of pizza ovens and the kings of clay. These ovens are made from superb refractory clay - cotto clay - found in the family's quarry and unique, thanks to having just the right alumina. This allows Valoriani ovens to heat up quickly and retain heat superbly, bring huge advantages to homeowners, as well as restaurant owners, hotels, pubs, mobile caterers, pizzerias, takeaways and more.

Orchard Ovens supplies some of Britain's best-known restaurants and chefs, whilst it is also a specialist creator of outdoor kitchens and wood-fired oven builds for the rich and famous, as well as everyday homeowners wishing to add value to their home and enjoy an outdoor lifestyle to the full.