Every month, Melina Hammer, Food52’s very dangle Hudson Valley correspondent, is serving up the whole bounty that upstate Contemporary York has to give.
I even indulge in long loved triple-cream cheeses. They possess no lower than 75 p.c fats, and are in most cases younger. They are moreover supremely spreadable. Mascarpone is an instance of a recent triple-cream, whereas Brillat-Savarin, Explorateur, and St. André are soft-ripened. Mediate of this develop of cheese as an additional luxurious, extra creamy Brie — velvety, decadent, and straightforward to mix with enticing or sweet pairings. France has historically cornered the market on triple-cream cheeses (they originated there within the 19th century), nonetheless on the present time there are so a lot of very fair correct ones made within the USA. So after I discovered a triple-cream being produced fair in my dangle field, I had to be taught more. Meet Four Fats Chicken, an award-a hit creamery — then get cooking. (This interview has been edited and condensed for size and clarity.)
Melina Hammer: Who is Four Fats Chicken, and how did you get your open up in cheese making?
Four Fats Chicken: Our cheese maker is Willy Bridgham. I’m Shaleena Bridgham, Willy’s wife, and Josie Madison is Willy’s sister. We bustle every thing. Willy bought his open up making cheese on the Aged Chatham Sheepherding Firm. He made cheese there for a few years earlier than we opened our dangle creamery.
MH: How did Four Fats Chicken get its name, and St. Stephen, too?
FFF: We wished our name to describe the field the place we’re making cheese. We looked by many historical paperwork earlier than creating with Four Fats Chicken. When Stephen Van Rensselaer settled this field, he turned into the greatest landowner round. He leased or rented his land out, and in step with the quantity of land they rented, folks paid within the develop of a day’s labor, bushels of wheat, and four fats fowl.
The name St. Stephen serves two capabilities: One, we’re located in Stephentown, so there may per chance be that. Two, we delight in song! All of our cheese has musical references. St. Stephen is a song made necessary by the Grateful Ineffective.
MH: How did you terminate up within the Hudson Valley? And how attain your cheeses fit into the panorama here?
FFF: We had been born and raised here in East Nassau, Contemporary York, and Stephentown is the next city over. We wished to be shut to home, so the positioning is superb, permitting us to work and live within 15 minutes of our home and creamery. We exhaust all native milk and cream in our cheese making — the correct terroir of Stephentown and the Hudson Valley.
MH: I delight in triple-cream cheeses, and they don’t seem like easy to reach by. How did you fetch out to develop a triple-cream? Can you represent the technique of establishing St. Stephen?
FFF: Willy’s expertise making soft-ripened cheese serves us neatly here. Soft-ripened cheeses are his favorite style. We noticed that there wasn’t one other Contemporary York say cheese maker producing a triple-cream, so it gave the affect delight in a gigantic cheese to open up with, since we may per chance perchance perchance no longer discover a local one.
St. Stephen is made in diminutive batches utilizing milk and cream. The milk and cream are pasteurized, and we add rennet and custom. After cutting back the curd, we ladle it by hand into molds, the place it rests till a fair correct pH is reached. Then it be brined in a saltwater bath earlier than being place within the aging coolers for a pair of weeks, till it be ready to be wrapped.
MH: What cheeses inspire you?
FFF: Jasper Hill cheeses develop us all giddy over here. We upright delight in their cheese and what they stand for as a ways as sustainability goes.
MH: What else can indulge in to silent we know about you?
FFF: We are family owned and operated, and we supply our milk and cream within the neighborhood from Dutch Hole Farms.
Rating Some Triple-Cream, Then Fetch This
As a result of their lush richness and peaceable flavor, triple-cream cheeses pair neatly with tough meals. Cherry preserves, dried apricots, cured salmon . . . Or these two recipes, namely dreamed up with triple-cream in mind: Cheesy mushroom toasts with a honey-miso dressing, and earthy chickpeas with stinging nettles. Whether or no longer St. Stephen or one other form, the cheese’s tanginess turns into more pronounced because it melts. Nonetheless you utilize it, enable the cheese to reach to room temperature—so it’la regards to be eaten with a spoon — to expertise its full character.
