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Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Best. Bleu Cheese Dressing. Ever.


I'm a bleu cheese snob. There, I said it. I love it. I wish I could say I love it all, but I don't. I'm very, very picky actually about my bleu cheese. It has to have the perfect balance of creamy to crumbly, tangy to sweet, veiny to white. In short, it needs to be perfect. And that perfection is Roquefort bleu cheese.
It's a sheep's milk bleu. It's French. It's old (hello mentioning in literature as far back as 70 AD!!) and it's awesome. It's aged in a cave whereby the French swear gives it that perfect balance and slight acidity. I don't care if it's aged in a wheat field - it's an amazing perfect cheese.
Naturally, my all-time favorite salad dressing then is bleu cheese dressing. And I hate (and I do mean hate here) store-bought bleu cheese dressings. They taste papery to me for some reason. And fake. So I decided to make my own a few days ago to go with my gorgeous heirloom tomatoes from the farmers market!
And so behold, the kind of bleu cheese dressings, the best you've ever had and ever will have. And I do gaurantee this. Notice there are no pictures of my dish because...well...it was that good. We sort of ate it before we could take pictures.
And so there you have it.
Best Bleu Cheese Dressing with Roquefort
about 1/4 cup good quality mayo (Best or Hellman's)
about 1/4 cup sour cream (not low fat please)
1 Tbsp or a good splash of cold heavy cream
about 2.5 Tbsp of Roquefort cheese plus extra
small pinch of kosher salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 tsp white balsamic vinegar
Place all ingredients in a food processor and pulse until cheese is chopped up and well combined. Taste and adjust with salt, pepper and vinegar to taste. Place in a bowl and add some more bleu cheese crumbles if desired. Serve immediately or wrap and keep cold until ready to serve.
*You can really manipulate the proportions here to suite your taste level. If you like a stronger flavor of bleu cheese then add more; if you like just a hint of it then add less to the puree and eliminate the chunks at the end. The white balsamic vinegar is perfect because it's slightly sweet which really brings out the flavor in the salty bleu, while complimenting it and not overpowering it. Using white instead of regular balsamic also lets you preserve the characteristic white color. If you can't find white balsamic then you can use a small splash of white distilled vinegar or lemon juice and a pinch of granulated sugar.
Serving suggestion: sliced heirloom tomatoes, fresh crusty French bread

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