At the farms of Menorca has been produced artisan cheese for hundreds of years. The process consists of a series of operations, handed down from father to son, the proper application defines the authentic Queso Mahon-Menorca. Technological advances have led to some modifications, but the cheese ripening Mahon-Menorca is still performed on the maturation cellars where the cheese pieces are treated as traditional crust, consisting of a series of turnovers, which is smeared piece with olive oil and paprika.
Types and varieties
In the case of Mahon-Menorca Cheese Artisan, fresh milk is used raw, bagging the curd in a cotton cloth that leaves marks on the characteristics piece (“fogassa”). For Mahon-Menorca Cheese made with pasteurized milk used molds that give the piece a square shape with rounded edges.
• TENDER
Is a soft cheese, white or yellowish, with a crust almost nonexistent, soft and elastic. Lactic aromas with faint memory of butter and a touch acidic and characteristic of the Mahon-Menorca. (Cure 21-60 days).
• Semi-CURED
Most consumed cheese and most characteristic. The bark is orange in pasteurized milk, and brown if craftsmen. Firm texture and easy cutting, ivory yellow, has a variable number of eyes small, irregularly distributed. Flavored milk and aromas more developed, is reminiscent of butter and toasted nuts (hazelnuts), oral persistence half, has developed the “bouquet” Mahon-Menorca typical (Cure of 2-5 months).
• CURED
A delight for cheese lovers with intense flavor. Its firm, hard texture, is less elastic, and in advanced stages of healing, becoming brittle flakes when cut. Taste and evolved aromas, complex and intense, with a long oral persistence. Post hints of aged wood, leather or cellar ripening , usually occurs spicy sensation.