Wine & Cheese: An Old Friendship – Part 3

I finally have time to write the last part of this cheese story, which is all about a fun experiment I did to combine different cheeses into one cheese. As I wrote in an earlier post, I am totally intrigued by using a marbled vegan cheese. As my first experiment did not result in a clearly marbled cheese, actually my mom suggested that I would cut up the Merlot cheese in tiny cubes and add that to a freshly made batch of cheese. Thanks, mom! It worked and resulted in a pretty interesting cheese.

Both cheeses that I combined into a yet-to-be-named new cheese, contain alcohol. The red cheese, which is a steamed rice flour cheese, was made with Merlot red wine (picture above, click here for recipe) and has a gorgeous dark red/purplish color.  The Swiss cheese, which has a totally different base and preparation method, was made with Vermouth.

Ingredients :
Aquafaba of 1 tin of chickpeas
1 cup soy milk
3 TBS melted refined coconut oil
140 gram (1 cup) boiled jasmin rice
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
4 TBS tapioca flour
5 tsp kappa carrageenan
2 TBS Vermouth
1 tsp lactic acid
100 gram Merlot cheese cut into small cubes

Preparation:
Place Vermouth, lactic acid, and cubed Merlot cheese aside. Place all other ingredient in blender and blend until completely smooth. Pour into saucepan. Heat on medium-high heat until the starches have fully formed (the mixture will be thick and glossy and pulls away from the saucepan).  Reduce the heat to low and add Vermouth and lactic acid  and stir until fully incorporated. Turn off heat and add cubed Merlot cheese. Stir well to incorporate. Pour into mould. Place in fridge for 8 hours. Remove cheese from mould and wrap into paper towels. I leave it uncovered in the fridge for 24 hours before transferring it to a plastic container.

I have had the cheese in the fridge for several days now and the contrast between the white and red cheeses is becoming more diffuse.

I very much welcome all ideas for a fun name for this cheese!

Happy experimenting!