What Aged Gouda Tastes Like
What Aged Gouda actually is
This is a Dutch cheese made from cow's milk. Ours is made in the Netherlands, and the ingredient list on the pack is short: pasteurised cow milk, salt, starter milk and microbial rennet.
The word doing the work in the name is aged. This is gouda that has been left to mature rather than sold young.
We buy it as whole wheels. The wheels come to Auckland, and we cut and pack them here, in our own room, rather than taking in cheese that was portioned and sealed somewhere on the other side of the world. That is why a piece looks like it came off a wheel — a wedge with a rind edge, not a moulded brick. The retail pack is 240 g.
What it tastes like
We describe it on the product page as rich and nutty. That is the honest short version, and it is the one we stand behind.
The way to meet it is plain. Take a piece on its own, before the crackers and before the chutney. Let it sit on your tongue for a moment instead of chewing straight through. Salt is one of the four ingredients, so it does its job here the way it does in any cheese — it carries everything else.
Eat it at room temperature. Cold cheese is muted cheese, and a piece straight from the fridge will not give you much. Give it time on the board and taste it again once it has come up.
How to serve it
Get it out of the fridge before you sit down to eat, not as you serve.
Cut it into short, chunky pieces rather than thin slices. A firm cheese does not want to be shaved into flaps; it wants a small sharp knife and a bit of pressure, and it is fine if the pieces come away uneven. That is what it is meant to do.
Then keep it simple. Bread and butter. A board with something sharp next to it, like pickle or apple. Grated over pasta at the end, off the heat. In a toasted sandwich, where it goes stringy and browns at the edges. Crumbled into a salad with something bitter, like radicchio or rocket.
You do not need an occasion for it. It is good on a Tuesday, standing at the bench, cut off the block with whatever knife is nearest. Cheese that only comes out for guests spends most of its life in the fridge, and that is a waste of a wheel.
How to keep it once it is cut
Wrap it again every time you cut from it. Waxed paper or a beeswax wrap, then a loose container, so it can breathe without drying out. Tight plastic pressed against the cut face is the thing to avoid.
Keep it refrigerated between +1°C and +5°C, and put it in the body of the fridge rather than the door, where the temperature swings every time someone opens it.
Bring out what you plan to eat and leave the rest cold. There is more on wrapping, boards and knives in How to Store & Handle Artisan Cheese.
Where to buy it in New Zealand
You can order it from us directly. We cut and pack in Auckland, so what turns up at your door was portioned here rather than months ago overseas.
Have a look at Aged Gouda. The pack is 240 g, which is enough for a board with a bit left over, or a week of sandwiches if you keep it wrapped.
Old Amsterdam is the other matured wheel we cut here, if you want two of them on the board at once.