Post in collaboration with Comté Cheese
This quick and easy breakfast, brunch or side dish combines crispy and cheesy in a Potato Rosti Waffle. The cheese is Comté. Made in in the beautiful French mountains of the Jura Massif it's a delicious unpasteurised cheese full of passion and provenance.
Assuming you're following me on social media (if not why not?! Facebook - Twitter - Instagram) you'll no doubt have spotted that I've recently been on a #VoyageDeFromage to France with Comté Cheese. Over three days alongside five other journalists and bloggers I got a real insight into the history and heritage of this much loved unpasturised cheese which is full of passion and provenance. I've come home looking 5 months pregnant with a 'cheese baby' but despite this I couldn't wait to get stuck in and cook up a storm using Comté with some inspiration from all that we ate, saw and learned during our trip. There will of course be a much fuller post to cover all of our adventures which included wine tasting, a cookery class, visits to a cheese museum, dairy farm, salt museum, cheese producer and a cave of 100,000+ cheeses! However for now a few key facts about Comté and then onto the waffletastic recipe!
Comte has been awarded both AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée) and AOP Status (Protected Origin Nomenclature). This ensures that Comté follows a set of stringent rules and requirements which guarantees its quality, provenance and history. Comté can only be made in a specific region of France - the Jura Massif. There are three distinct types of artisans who collaborate in the process - farms, fruitières and maturing cellars.
Farms - The cows that produce milk to make Comte must by law be either Montbéliarde or French Simmental. In the summer they have a minimum of 1 hectare of pasture per cow and in the winter they come indoors and eat hay and cereals. No silage allowed. They are milked twice daily - 365 days a year at over 3000 family farms. The raw milk is collected daily by the Fruitière. Regulations state that it can be held for no longer than 24 hours before being turned into cheese. You need 400 litres of milk to make one wheel of cheese.
Fruitières - These are the small village dairy co-operatives where the 40kg wheels of Comté are made. There are 153 of them in the region and each one can collect only the raw milk from the farms within a 12.5km radius. The cheese is produced in copper pots with a combination of heat, rennet and starter culture creating the curds and whey. The hand of the cheesemaker is paramount in ensuring the exact moment at which the cheese is ready to be pressed into wheels. The young cheeses are kept at the fruitière for 15 days during which they are turned and brushed with salt to start the maturation process and the formation of the distinctive outer rind.
Maturing Cellars - good cheese takes time and the next stage in the process for Comte can take anything between 4 and 18 months, sometimes even longer. There are 13 cheese caves in the Jura region where the ageing or 'affinage' takes place. Here the cheeses are regularly turned and salted by none other than a cheese robot! This is one of the few part of the process where modern technology had been introduced. However when it comes to deciding when each individual Comte has reached its peak of perfection that comes down to the skill of the affineur who taps and samples the cheese to check the check the taste, colour, and texture of each wheel. Older Comte isn't necessarily better, diversity doesn't come from the age of the cheese. Every single Comte will mature at a different speed with a different aromatic profile. Quality is everything and the characteristic image of a green cow bell on a Comte assures you that it's the real thing.
Today's recipe was inspired by the final stop on our trip when we lunched at La Petite Echelle in Rochejean. If you ever find yourself in this region of France close to the Swiss border do make time to visit this restaurant as there is something very special and truly authentic about it. We dipped (and dropped!) cubes of bread and potatoes into the unctuous fondue made with a young Comté, Garlic and Vin Jaune, feasted on a giant Rosti topped with local sausage and wildflowers. Dessert - Tarte du chalet - was the most heavenly Rhubarb Tart that I have ever tasted. All of this was produced in a tiny rustic kitchen with recipes and shopping lists written on the wall tiles. It was like stepping straight into a Heidi book and was the most perfect place to end our voyage de fromage.
Comté Cheese and Potato Rosti Waffles
500g Potatoes (no need to peel if using new potatoes)
1 Small Onion
150g ComtéCheese
Salt & Pepper
Coarsley grate the potatoes, onion and Comté cheese - a food processor will make quick work of this.
Season well with salt and freshly ground pepper and mix until thoroughly combined.
Cook according to the instructions for your particular waffle maker.
I have a a No-Mess Waffle Maker from Sage by Heston Blumenthal. This quantity made 3 circular (12 triangular) waffles and they were perfectly cooked at setting 5.
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Disclosure: I traveled to France to eat cheese and drink wine as a guest of Comté.
As always, all views expressed are my own.
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