Blur's Alex James: my 6 favourite cheese recipes (including Dairylea)

Times

a day ago

It's hard to believe that for two entire centuries Britain was 'the land without music', but it's true. After the death of Henry Purcell in 1695, nothing deemed worthy of note was written by anyone born in Britain until the 20th century. At which point we immediately started to make up for lost time: Edward Elgar, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gustav Holst, a whole bunch of others and then, with the Beatles, Britain went full supernova musically and has pretty much stayed that way ever since.
It's also fair to say that in the not too distant past Britain was 'the land without food', because at some point between 1939 and 1945 we ran out. When my mum was my eldest daughter's age, bacon was still rationed. The rationing system devastated our culinary heritage.
For decades, the French and their Mediterranean neighbours poked fun at what they considered our brown, stodgy and boring food. But hang on a minute. British farmers helped shape the eating and drinking habits of the entire planet. And we are still setting the pace.
On our honeymoon in 2003, my wife and I bought a farm in the Cotswolds. It was a turning point, and not just for the two of us. Over the past 20 years, British food culture has gone from strength to strength. In the war years only one type of cheese was made in Britain. When we hosted the British Cheese Awards here on the farm in 2008 there were 906 entries — more types than France.
The great British cheese explosion preceded the champagne supernova — England has gone from nought to light speed in winemaking terms, particularly sparkling wine, since I was my eldest daughter's age. Here are just a handful of my favourite things to do with cheese. They all taste even better with English sparkling wine.
• Read more restaurant reviews and recipes from our food experts
I had a letter recently from someone saying he wasn't totally sure but he thought he'd most probably been born in my bedroom, and asking if he could come over for a chat.
I said, 'No problem.'
And it was true.
He grew up here on the farm and told me it had been bombed during the war. Fritz was likely looking for Coventry, he said, but had got lost. When he saw the railway line, he thought he'd go for that instead. The bomb missed the railway line but blew a big hole in the field where they used to graze the shorthorn cattle.
And shorthorn cattle from this farm, he said, were exported to all corners of the globe, from Texas to New Zealand.
I think beef is the ultimate foodie treat, especially when it's been aged. At Big Feastival — our annual music and food extravaganza — we use sirloin that has been matured for the same length of time as our blue cheese: 90 days. Blue cheese and beef connect incredibly well. If you've never tried it, just have a little bowl of shredded blue on the table next time you're cooking steaks.
This recipe is a Feastival favourite. We serve it with leaves from Claire's market garden, while our Britpop sparkling wine is the perfect summer accompaniment.
Serves 1-2
• 1 sirloin steak• Mix of salad leaves such as radicchio, butter lettuce and frisée• 100g blue cheese
Cook your steak. While it's resting, arrange your salad leaves on a platter and chop up your cheese. Top the salad with the steak, then garnish with the cheese. Serve immediately.
• Mud, floods and tears: festival disasters with Blur's Alex James
Soufflés date from the early 18th century but came into their own in the 1820s, when new ovens using air-draught systems rather than hot coals made it possible to achieve the constant cooking heat you need.
Now, I reckon there are precisely as many soufflé recipes as there are chefs in the world. I've never seen one done the same way twice. My favourite method comes from 1955's Little Cheese Dishes by Ambrose Heath: think of it as a really fluffy cheese omelette — it uses exactly the same ingredients.
'Beat the yolks of four eggs with two tablespoons of cream and add half a pound of grated gruyère cheese,' Heath writes. 'Then mix well with the whites of the eggs stiffly whisked, pour into a well-buttered soufflé dish and bake in a hot oven for a quarter of an hour.'
It's really quick and it's never failed me.
If you want to go for a sweet soufflé instead of a cheese one, this is quicker and easier still. Stuff a chunk of chocolate right into the middle of a giant marshmallow, pop it in a ramekin and microwave it until it swells up. Sprinkle with chopped nuts and fresh mint to serve.
Makes 4 soufflés
• 30g unsalted melted butter, plus extra for brushing• Handful of breadcrumbs• 35g plain flour• 160ml milk• 4 egg yolks• 70g grated gruyère• 1 tsp mustard powder• Salt and pepper• 5 egg whites, whisked to stiff peaks• Finely chopped chives, to serve
1. Preheat the oven to 200C fan/gas 7. Brush 4 soufflé pots with melted butter and add a sprinkling of breadcrumbs.2. Melt 30g butter in a saucepan over a low heat. Add the flour and cook for 1 minute, then gradually add the milk. Bring to the boil for 2 minutes, stirring, until the mixture has thickened, then remove from the heat. Stir in the egg yolks, cheese, mustard powder, salt and pepper.3. Fold in the whisked egg whites. Pour the mixture into the prepared dishes and bake for 15 minutes. Don't open the oven door until they have risen and set. Serve with chopped chives.
I don't think I'll ever stop loving the music I loved when I was a teenager or the food I loved when I was a kid. And even back then, when British food was derided as brown and stodgy and boring, we had the best crisps on the planet.
Crisps are just like tiny, extra snappy, intensely flavoured crackers really. Their texture particularly makes for a wondrous counterpoint to the unctuous delights of the cheeseboard.
I must confess to a slight weakness for Dairylea with crisps, but that's just the beginning. A packet of ready salted and a tub of crème fraîche is like an instant summer fondue.
If you're a fan, you may find pickled onion flavour Monster Munch benefit from a good smear of cream cheese too.
Blue cheese and Frazzles work surprisingly well — we served them with the fizz as the canapé on arrival at my wife's birthday party this year. They would also go nicely alongside digestifs and cigars as a dainty modern alternative to cheese and crackers now that everyone is full of Mounjaro.
Serves 4 as nibbles
• 1 packet of pickled onion Monster Munch• 1 packet of Frazzles• 2 Dairylea triangles, foil peeled back• 50g blue cheese, chopped• Small handful of fresh chives, chopped
Arrange both packets of crisps on a large plate around the Dairylea triangles. Dot some of the crisps with the blue cheese. Sprinkle the chives on the Dairylea and serve.
Sauces make all the difference to a meal. It's remarkably easy to rustle up quick cheese sauces that will liven up anything from baked spuds to broccoli.
Melting pure cheese is the culinary equivalent of cranking the volume right up to 11, so you really need something substantial to soak up the flavour.
The texture of floury potatoes is a great foil for molten cheddar — one of the all-time great melters. Zapping a cup of grated mild supermarket cheddar in the microwave until it is oozing and then slathering it on a piping hot jacket spud gives quite miraculous results — like a raclette but without the faff.
It only takes slightly longer to gently warm some cream in a small saucepan and chuck in a handful of chopped cheese and other flavourings, stirring until the cheese melts. The cream magically binds it all together. Great on new potatoes.
I prefer blue cheese, but usually end up using whatever odd lumps are knocking around at the back of the fridge. You can pour this on anything, even a roast — the bit where the cheese sauce hits the gravy is the sweet spot. Knee-tremblingly good.
Serves 4
• 500ml milk• 1 bay leaf• 10 peppercorns• Half a small onion, halved• 30g butter • 30g flour• Salt and pepper• 100g grated cheese• 3 tbsp double cream
1. Gently heat the milk with the bay leaf, peppercorns and onion. Strain and discard the flavourings.2. Melt the butter over a medium heat. Add the flour and cook for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly. Gradually add the warmed milk, then simmer for 20 minutes. Season and add the cheese, stirring until melted.3. Whisk in the cream, remove from the heat and pour over potatoes.
My grandad was a chef and I absolutely loved watching him work. The rest of the world was boring compared with his kitchen. They literally couldn't keep me out. So my first job, when I was about seven, was working for him and usually involved picking mint from the garden — I suspect to keep me out of the way while he cooked.
Mint grows like a weed. It requires no attention whatsoever but brings so much to the table in summer, especially when picked fresh.
Strawberries are more of a faff because birds and wasps all love them, but there's nothing like a really good, perfectly ripe fresh strawberry.
We usually just spread some mascarpone on a plate, sprinkle with chopped fresh mint leaves, drizzle with olive oil and serve with a big bowl of strawberries for people to dunk, but you could chop the strawberries and run them through the mascarpone, then serve in bowls and garnish with the mint.
Either way, I'd have a bowl of icing sugar on the table as well, because some like their strawberries sweeter than others.
Mascarpone occupies an interesting cheese/yoghurt/cream grey area — it's like clotted cream but less cloying.
Serves 2
• 200g mascarpone• Freshly chopped mint leaves• Olive oil• 100g icing sugar in a bowl• 1 punnet strawberries, hulled
Dollop the mascarpone on a plate and top with mint. Drizzle with olive oil or dust with icing sugar, depending on preference, and serve with strawberries on the side.
If you like pizza (and who doesn't?), it is worth learning how to make pizza dough. The method below is so simple — it never fails, and I do it every week.
And if you really, really like pizza, I cannot recommend a pizza oven strongly enough. I bought a commercial one online for less than £250 during lockdown and it paid for itself in no time at all, because homemade pizzas cost pennies. And the stone base and the high temperature (pizza ovens go about 100C hotter than standard ovens) give truly mouthwatering results.
Pizza-making is a great family activity as everyone has their own favourite toppings and can't help getting involved.
Makes enough dough for 4 pizzas
• 500g type-00 flour• 30g table salt• 2g fresh yeast• Semolina flour, for dusting• Jar of passata• Handful of dried oregano• 250g grated cheese, such as mozzarella• Fresh basil
1. Add the flour, salt and yeast to a mixer bowl and attach the dough hook. Turn on to a slow speed. Add 600ml water gradually until the dough forms a ball and then keep kneading for 5 minutes. Divide into 250g balls and leave them to rise for a few hours. Freeze the balls you won't be using.2. On a flat surface dusted with semolina flour, roll out the pizza balls to the desired size. Add the passata. Sprinkle with dried oregano and top with cheese and any other toppings. Bake in a pizza oven or an oven preheated to 200C fan/gas 7 until the edges are golden brown. Serve with fresh basil scattered on top.
Alex James's Big Feastival runs from August 22-24 on his farm near Kingham in Oxfordshire. Tickets from bigfeastival.com. Buy his cheese and wine at alexjames.co