Fromage Fort

Photo by Rob Robitaille

Have you ever wondered what to do with those little chunks of cheese that collect in your refrigerator cheese drawer?  Alone, they are not big enough to do anything worthwhile with, but together they are the building blocks for something delicious.  Once again, leave it to the French to re-purpose old cheese into something great.  I'm talking about Fromage Fort, which literally translates to strong cheese.  Essential, it is left over cheese turned into a spread that can be eaten with crackers or slathered on bread and broiled. The only caveat to this is to be careful if you decide to use blue cheese as it can tend to get really strong and boss the other flavors around. Other than that, pretty much anything goes and you are only limited by your creativity.  The best thing about Fromage Fort is that no two batches taste alike, which I think is really fun because each time is a surprise. This works great as an appetizer, or as a snack on a cold Minnesota winter day.  Since Fromage Fort can be all over the flavor scale, this recipe is a very loose guideline, more of like a thought map that I use when making it.  Seriously, it is hard to screw this up.

Fromage Fort

• Left over cheese - about 1 lb. (In this example, I used mostly Cheddar.  It also had Brie and a couple of other firm cheeses that I can't remember right now.)
• 2-4 T. butter
• 1-2 cloves of garlic, peeled
• Dry white wine
• Salt and pepper to taste

We will assume that the cheese is free of mold and dry spots.  I am not going to provide direction on whether or not you should use a particular piece of cheese if it has mold.  Personally, mold on firm cheeses doesn't scare me and I trim that off. Softer cheese, not so much.  Then cube your cheese and place it in a food processor.  Add the butter and garlic and process until a ball forms.  At that point, start slowly adding the wine until the cheese becomes creamy and smooth.  You may need to scrape the sides of your food processor a few times during this.  Adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper and process another 20-30 seconds.  You just made Fromage Fort!  You can use it immediately, or refrigerate for up to a week.  I think it tastes better if you leave it for a couple days, but it's pretty darned good right away, albeit much sharper.

It will firm up in the refrigerator, so you will want to let it come up to room temperature before serving it as a dip or spreading on bread.  If you choose to broil it, you need to keep a close eye on it as it goes really fast.  I typically broil it with my rack in the middle or one up from middle.