What Green Pesto Gouda Tastes Like
What Green Pesto Gouda actually is
Start with the gouda, because that is what you are buying. It is a cow's milk cheese made in the Netherlands, and the pesto is worked into it rather than sitting on the outside.
On the pack, the ingredients read: pasteurised full fat cow's milk, pesto herb mix at 1.3 per cent, salt, pine nuts and a starter culture. That short list is the whole cheese. The green you can see through the paste is that herb mix.
Two things to know before you serve it to other people. There is milk in it, and there are pine nuts in it. Worth saying out loud if anyone at the table avoids nuts.
We bring it in as whole wheels and cut and pack it here in Auckland, so what you get is a cut piece rather than something that has sat pre-sliced for months.
What it tastes like
It is creamy and smooth, with a gentle nuttiness from the gouda base, lifted by bright basil and a savoury hint of garlic.
Read that in order, because that is the order you taste it in. The gouda is underneath, doing the work — smooth, a little nutty. The basil comes up over the top of it, and the garlic sits behind the basil as a savoury note rather than a hit.
So it is a gouda first and a pesto cheese second. If pesto is already something you reach for, this will make sense to you straight away. If you are buying it for someone who is unsure about flavoured cheese, the gouda base is the reason it holds together.
How to serve it
Nothing about this cheese needs a special occasion. It slices, so treat it like a slicing cheese.
Cut it into cubes or short batons for a board and eat it with your fingers. Put it in a sandwich with ham or with sliced tomato — the basil and the tomato get along. Slice it thin into a lunchbox with crackers. Chop it through a salad. Have a piece standing at the bench while you work out what is for dinner.
A few practical notes. Take it out of the fridge a while before you serve it, because cold flattens a cheese and this one has herbs to give. Cut from the wedge as you go instead of slicing the whole piece up front, so the cut face stays fresh. Use a clean, dry knife, especially if you have just been through something washed-rind or blue.
For a drink, keep it simple: a dry white, or a cold lager.
How to keep it once it is cut
The pack asks you to keep it refrigerated between +1°C and +5°C, so the main body of the fridge is fine and the door is not.
Wrap it in paper first, then put it in a container or a loose bag. Cheese needs to breathe a little. Tight cling film against the cut face traps moisture and the paste goes slippery. Re-wrap in fresh paper when the old wrap gets damp.
If you want the longer version of this — wrapping, boards, what to do with a piece that has dried at the edge — we have written it up in How to Store & Handle Artisan Cheese.
Where to buy it in New Zealand
You can order Green Pesto Gouda from us directly. The retail pack is 180 g, which is a reasonable amount for a board or a week of sandwiches.
Every piece is cut and packed in Auckland from whole wheels we import, so it is cut close to when it reaches you rather than a long way upstream.
If you would rather cook it than slice it, our pesto gouda pasta is where most of ours ends up.