This year we made every effort not to repeat last year’s very fun but very crowded Super Bowl bonanza. We still wound up with a full living room, but everyone had somewhere to sit and could see the tv. Improvement. Knowing that Mike would be making queso, I took the opportunity to make two other kinds of cheese products.
The first was fromage fort, per this Smitten Kitchen recipe, served on toasts. I used a mix of camembert, manchego, and a hard orange cheese with a parmesan-like texture and a name too French to remember. Since we had a keg of homebrew IPA on hand, I used that in place of the wine called for in the recipe, and it turned out very well.
The second cheese spread was obazda, a German beer cheese, which I served with homemade pretzels. This was my first attempt at pretzels, and they were so beautiful it brought a tear to my eye.
They’re simple to make (I used the baking soda approach laid out in this recipe rather than the lye – anything that requires gloves and goggles does not seem right for eating). For the obazda, which I’ve also seen spelled obaster and obazta, I cobbled together a few recipes from across the intertubes, namely this, this and this. I flatter myself to think that we made everyone feel very fat.
Next missive will be from France; woohoo!