Sheeps / Goats Cheese

Clanc

Hi,
could anyone please recommend good, reasonably priced Sheeps and / or Goats cheeses and where to get them? I was in Superquinn lately + they seemed to have lots of very specialist stuff on offer (in miniscule portions + at huge prices).
Was I just looking in the wrong place?

Thanks
Clanc

Shabadu

The little deli beside Il Caligrostro and Enotecha della Langhe in the Italian Quarter opposite the back of the Jervis street shopping centre. They do beautiful regional Italian cheeses, loads of goats cheese. They're doing a really beautiful one with wheat grain at the mo.

Marks and Spencers are good for basic generic cheapish goats cheese. Sheridans have a good range but are overpriced unless you can get their trade discount.

The Sweeper

Goats cheese tends to come in little portions actually - it's a rich, strong food, and as with most rich foods it comes in small packages. (Kind of like the way you can buy rice in 5kg bags, but anchovies in 25g jars.)

I find the different varieties of goats cheese quite similar in taste. There are good versions of it - I like the cheese with a peppercorn coating.

Sheeps cheese tends to be stronger and more bitter than goats cheese - with more of a blue-cheesie type undertone. Again, small portions are the way to go because it's strong stuff.

Alanna

Sheeps and goats cheeses are expensive because it takes a lot of milk to make a cheese and goats and sheep don't produce as much milk as cows. Possibly the best known and most widely available sheeps cheese is Spanish Manchego, which, depending on it's age, has quite a mild taste. Young goats cheese is also quite mild, Tesco have a small but reasonably priced young fresh goats cheese log which is good for sandwiches and cooking. If you want to try an Irish one Boilie cheese produce little balls of goats cheese that are sold in lightly flavoured sunflower oil and are very nice for a salad.

Alun

Jr.Shabadu wrote:

The little deli beside Il Caligrostro and Enotecha della Langhe in the Italian Quarter opposite the back of the Jervis street shopping centre.

There's an Italian quarter in Dublin? You learn something new every day! What street are these places in?

Shabadu

It's kind of tiny. You know the builder 'Wallace'? With the long curly grey hair? He's the vociferously anti-bush dude. He spends a lot of time in Italy and decided to build a little plaza in his new development. It's a coutyard with a large photographic mural of the last supper done by John Byrne.
See link for info

http://www.johnbyrne.info/


It has a coffee shop, wine bar, there's a juice bar and a Bar Italia, and the deli. It's just off Strand Street, between Liffey St. and Jervis st. Practically all the staff are Italian, there's a brilliant atmosphere. During the summer the whole courtyard was packed with people in the evening drinking the wine from Enotecha. Beware the coffee from Cagliostro though, the barista is a bit crap and always burning it. Go to Bar Italia and get coffee. They use Palombini beans, yum.

Alun

Thanks, I'll check it out when I'm next in the area!

Clanc

Hi everyone, thanks for the feedback.
Regarding the portion sizes, I appreciate the points raised which explain the smaller sizes.
What I probably should have mentioned in my first post however was that I'd seen what I'd call large portions (up to whole cheeses of 3-5kg) on sale in Spain for comparably little money (that's where I acquired the taste).
My concern is that the shops here are just trying to "sex-up" small portions in order to up their prices (eg comparison between price of 500ml and 2L bottle of Coke by volume).
I was hoping that I might be able to locate larger quantities for less money here.
Also thanks for the various recommendations of specific cheeses, but what kind of prices are you paying? Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong place.
Finally I was looking at the Spanish "log" in Tescos but it seems you lose a lot of volume through the amount of rind to be discarded.

Cheers
Clanc

Shabadu

If you're going to buy a whole cheese I reckon Sheridan's is your best bet.

Milkman

If you have access to a car...
My friend's family run a goat farm in Glen of the downs, between bray and greystones on the N11. They make goats cheese and I think they sell the milk as well.
Old McDonnells farm. You might have seen their yogurts in the shops - first bio-yogurts on the market in Ireland and delicious. They also make fabulous bio -cream cheeses.
Lovely family and they always welcome people up to have a gander around.
01 2828992
http://www.bordbia.ie/go/Corporate/Publications/miscellaneous/irishfarmhousecheese.pdf

M.

Shabadu

McDonnells yoghurts are nyom, I didn't know they did cheese too. I can't drag meself and the fella and the baby out there as we don't have a car. Do they supply the cheese to any shops in Dublin?

Blub2k4

Jr.Shabadu wrote:

Do they supply the cheese to any shops in Dublin?

I'd suggest calling them 01 2828992

Shabadu

Cheers will do.

Milkman

Most Tesco's, dunnes, Centras and Spars have their yogurts and cheeses.
Thier main problem is distribution as some of the larger shops prefer to sell their own brands or Danone ( who have some deal with stocking and organising the fridges which is why there is such a huge amount of them on display in most shops now).
The cheeses are just delicious, we go through a couple of them every few weeks.
The cream cheeses are low fat, cows milk, bio cheeses ( i could be wrong but I think they are the only bio cheeses on the market).
They do some great goats cheese, standard and also a meditaranian goats cheeese which is not as strong as the basic one. Man I'm getting cravings as I type...

Give them a shout in the farm and they'll be able to tell you where your nearest stockist is. Friday is generally not the best day to ring as they are mental busy.
If you are talking to Paddy tell him cormac put you on to them.

jackie g

forget your tescos and dunnes stores etc - get to your nearest farmers markets. i know ardsallagh cheese (award winning irish goats cheese) do marley park market on saturday and dun laoghaire people's park on sunday. they do a range of soft cheeses (plain, herby, fruity etc) and some hard ones too. they are all sold by the cheesemakers themselves and are very reasonably priced, compared to what you pay for them in the supermarkets.