Tomme Cheese Recipes
Tomme Cheese Recipes
What can you cook with Tomme? Can you substitute Tomme in for Cheddar? Yes! Tomme is as approachable as cheddar cheese and works well in a number of familiar dishes. Here are some of our favorite uses for Tomme beyond the cheese plate.
Use Tomme in place of cheddar in your favorite mac and cheese recipe.
Use Tomme for potatoes au gratin.
Make a crowd-pleasing pimento cheese spread. See below for our favorite!
Pimento Cheese
8 ounces fresh shredded Cumberland or your favorite savory Tomme cheese, grated with a food processor or hand grater
¼ cup Duke's mayo
Scant ½ cup jarred pimento or other roasted red peppers (from a 7-ounce jar), finely diced
½ teaspoon red-pepper flakes
½ teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon each of garlic and onion powder
1 tsp sriracha
Salt and black pepper to taste
Mix and refrigerate for at least an hour before serving with veggies, crackers or as a sandwich spread with grilled vegetables or sliced meats.
Sean Brock's Herb Dumplings
¾ cup water
8 tablespoons (1 stick) of unsalted butter
1 cup of all-purpose flour
1 ½ teaspoons of salt
4 large eggs
½ cup grated Tomme cheese
¼ cup of finely chopped herb of your choice.
Combine the water and 6 tablespoons of the butter in a saucepan. Bring to a boil on high. Reduce and add in the flour and salt. Stir until thick. Cool mixture. Transfer the mixture to a stand mixer with a paddle attachment (or use a hand mixer). On low, beat the eggs in one at a time, incorporating them fully before adding the next. Add the Tomme cheese and chopped herbs.
Bring a saucepan to a boil and add one tablespoon of dumpling scoops to the water in batches of 4. Cook each batch for 3 minutes, and finish them in a skillet with brown butter.
Makes 24 dumplings.
Aligot
This guide wouldn't be complete without an aligot recipe. If you made it this far, you're probably as hungry as the devout travelers on a holy expedition (who traditionally received aligot) would have been.
Aligot was a refueling dish for those who crossed on foot en route to holy sites like Santiago de Compostela.
It was first whipped up by the Auvernauts, a group from the Middle Ages living in South Central France. In those days (approximately 980), the county was formed as the feudal domain for the Counts of Auvergne (sounds fancy).
The dish would have been made with Tomme de Laguiole, also known as Tomme fraiche, which is a fresh only semi-fermented version of Tomme, though if you're making it, you can use any type you like. The cheese is then blended with mashed potatoes, butter, cream, crushed garlic, and salt and pepper to taste.
Mix Aligot until it forms an elastic texture; the stretchier, the better. That's when you know you got your Aligot right. Today, it's still prepared and often served alongside pork or sausages and Auvergne red wine.
If you really want to get adventurous with your Aligot, try these variations.
There's so much more to say about Tomme, but most of that you will get in tasting it and enjoying it with friends (or on your couch).
Oh, and about that rind. You can eat it! Obviously, eating it will change the taste, and it's an earthy quality and texture that not everyone loves, so you do you, but yes, please enjoy Tomme cheese with the rind, at least on the first bite, and don't be worried if it's got a fuzzy velveteen exterior, that's Mucor and not only safe to eat but eating it will also elevate you to the status of "cheese nerd," which is a title earned by the brave few.
