Description and peculiarities of making Ble de Jex cheese. Composition and calorie content, benefits and harms when consumed. Recipes and history of the variety.
Ble de Gex is a French soft blue cheese that has been made only from unpasteurized cow's milk since the beginning of the 20th century. Prior to this, a mixture of goat or sheep was allowed as a raw material. Texture - oily, creamy; color - white, with a slight yellowness, blue and emerald green irregular blotches; taste - sweet, but with bitterness, creamy, with hints of walnut and vanilla, a feeling of buttery aftertaste; aroma - rich, mushroom. The crust is natural, white or grayish, unevenly colored. The heads are in the form of a flattened cylinder or wheel with a diameter of 35-43 cm and a height of 7-14 cm. The weight can be from 7 to 9 kg.
How is Ble de Jax cheese made?
To get 1, 6-2 kg of a fermented milk product, you need to prepare 15-16 liters of milk, calcium chloride, lactic acid bacterial cultures, white and blue mold, rennet.
They make the Ble de Jax cheese, like other blue cheeses, but with some peculiarities
- Milk is cleaned using a centrifuge, but not pasteurized. The mixture is heated to 27 ° C and, maintaining a constant temperature, mesophilic cultures, rennet and immediately the Penicillium Roqueforti mold are added.
- After curdling, the calcium is cut, stirred without heating, and the curd grains are allowed to settle (the size of a small bean). The temperature is slowly raised - by 1 ° C for 10 minutes to 38 ° C.
- When the curd layer descends, part of the whey is drained, and the cheese mass is transferred to molds, special designs with numerous holes, covered with cheese cloth.
- After the initial pressing, the heads are taken out, broken up, mixed with penicillin fungi and salt and put back into molds, where they are left for self-pressing and salting for 4-6 days. Thanks to this process, the finished product acquires an original bitterness.
- Then the heads are taken out of the mold and dried for 24 hours. Using the puncture method, white mold is introduced, and air is pumped to enhance fermentation.
- When they prepare Ble de Jex cheese, they try to ensure that not only point greenish blotches of arbitrary localization are visible on the cut, but also clear blue veins. At the same stage, the “Gex” mark is placed on the surface. Its presence proves that the cheese was produced according to standards.
- The heads are lowered into caves with a temperature of 8-12 ° C and a humidity of 80%.
There are some features of the maturation of Ble de Gex. Several "cheese wheels" with different production times are installed in one grotto. In addition, fermentation proceeds better if Conte cheese is placed in the same room. There is such a characteristic cheesy smell in the caves that it is impossible to be in them without habit. Therefore, excursions are limited.
The first 2 weeks, the heads are turned over 2 times a day, then - 2-3 times a week. Exposure depends on the season. The autumn and winter Ble de Jex can be tasted in 2 months, and the summer one is raised in 4-6 months.
The increase in the shelf life is due to the peculiarity of the feedstock. Milk is not pasteurized or heat-treated, so fungal crops that cows eat along with meadow grasses do not transform. They enhance fermentation and increase resistance to environmental influences. When manufactured in winter, all crops are introduced artificially, and their protective properties are weakened.
