Manchego With Honey and Almonds
Why this works
Cheese, honey, almonds. That is the whole idea.
Manchego has a gentle savoury flavour with buttery richness and soft nutty undertones. The honey pulls against the savoury side. Toasted almonds pick up the nutty part and bring crunch. Nothing on the plate is fighting anything else.
It also suits a Tuesday. You are not really cooking. You are toasting nuts and warming honey while the cheese sits out on the board and loses its chill.
Manchego D.O.P. Cheese is made in Spain. We bring it in as whole wheels and cut and pack it here in Auckland, which is the short version of why the cut face still looks like cheese and not like plastic.
Ingredients
Serves 4. Prep 10 minutes. Cook 15 minutes.
1 pack Spanish Manchego, 140g Net
100g whole almonds, skin on
30ml olive oil
2g flaky salt
60ml runny honey
1 sprig rosemary
Crusty bread or plain crackers, to serve
Manchego D.O.P. Cheese carries a milk allergen declaration on the pack, so check that first if you are feeding someone new. Use a honey you would happily eat off the spoon, because that is more or less what is happening here. Skin-on almonds are the ones you want. The rosemary is there to scent the honey and then leave.
Method
Take the cheese out of the fridge and unwrap it. Set it on a board and leave it alone while you do everything else. Cold cheese gives you less of itself.
Put a dry frying pan over medium heat. Add the almonds, then the olive oil, and toss so every nut has a light coat.
Toast the almonds, shaking the pan often so they move around. You are waiting for two things: light colour, and the smell. Stay with the pan. They go from done to burnt fast.
Tip the almonds onto a plate, scatter the salt over while they are hot, and spread them out. Leave them to cool. They crisp up as they sit.
Wipe the pan out. Add the honey and the rosemary sprig and set it over a low heat.
Warm the honey gently until it loosens and runs off the back of a spoon. Do not let it bubble hard. You want it warm and pourable, not cooked.
Take the pan off the heat and leave the rosemary sitting in the honey while you deal with the cheese.
Slice the Manchego thinly, working straight down through the wedge. Thin slices give the honey something to sit on.
Roughly chop about half the almonds and leave the rest whole. The mix of chopped and whole gives you something to pick at either way.
Lay the cheese out on a plate or board, overlapping the slices a little.
Fish out the rosemary sprig, then spoon the warm honey over the cheese. Do not drown it. You can always add more.
Scatter the almonds over the top and around the edge.
Serve straight away, with bread or crackers alongside. Eat it with your hands.
Notes and substitutions
Almonds are not the only option. Hazelnuts or walnuts work the same way, toasted and salted the same way.
If you have no rosemary, use thyme, or skip it and serve the honey plain. The honey is doing the heavy lifting either way.
You can toast the almonds earlier in the day and leave them in a jar. That drops this to a five-minute job when people arrive.
Anything left over goes back in the fridge, wrapped. There is more on keeping a cut piece in good shape in How to Store & Handle Artisan Cheese.
Bread or crackers is your call. Something plain, so it stays out of the way.