Cheese Month Is Here
And an interview with comedian Aaron Chen
Good morning! In this, the first newsletter of 2024, I bring you the opening instalment of CHEESE MONTH. January will be a month of cheese-centric recipes on the newsletter, all of them vegetarian. This week, it’s Leek, Goat’s Cheese and Za’atar Pie! In The Interviews I’m talking to comedian and actor Aaron Chen (see him in Netflix’s Fisk) about working at McDonalds and weird happenings in supermarkets. What a guy!
Last January, I ran with a month of pie recipes, and I loved every second. I found it motivating to be limited by format with my recipe writing. A little New Year challenge, you could say. And so I’m starting this year this same way, only instead of pie our focus is cheese.
What can I tell you about my relationship with cheese? I spent years selling it, wrapping it, and cleaning it, as a cheesemonger. Like a lot of people in the UK, I think I cook with cheese a lot more than I even realise. Often, a meal doesn’t feel complete without it for me. And so, in midwinter, when we need food that makes us feel whole, I will be centring meals around it.
First up is this pie recipe, which came about as a kind of hybrid of a few things I have eaten and loved. With its simple combination of cheese, potato and allium: it’s a little bit cheese and onion pasty. With the feta, dill and lemoniness, it’s a little bit spanakopita. And with the za’atar butter, it doffs its cap to Molly Baz’s excellent feta scones (which I made over Christmas). The puff pastry plait and the addition of dill are inspired by my Mum’s salmon plait. As you can tell from these pictures, I’m not a perfect plaiter. But then I’ve never been able to do French braids either. I’m still standing!
The result of all of these inspirations is a homely and satisfying pie that I think brings something different from the usual. The potato makes it comforting and filling; the leek brings sweetness; the cheese, acidity and the za’atar butter, warmth and spice. I love it and I hope you will too.
