Fiore Sardo

Fiore Sardo (Traditional Sardinian Smoked Sheep's-Milk Cheese)

Fiore Sardo is a hard, smoked sheep's-milk cheese from Sardinia, made with kid rennet, brine-salted, cold-smoked over lentisk and holm oak, then aged for several months. True farmhouse production requires raw milk, traditional wooden tools and weeks of controlled humidity. This home-scale version uses pasteurised milk, a stovetop cold smoker and a wine fridge as a cave substitute; it approximates the result but cannot carry the DOP mark.

Prep

180 min

Cook

120 min

Total

300 min

Serves

Makes 2 wheels of approximately 1 kg (2.2 lb) each

Difficulty

Hard

Recipe ingredients

• •8000 ml (2.1 gallons) full-cream sheep's milk, pasteurised, pasteurised rather than raw: a home cave has no tested acidity or salt controls for a raw sheep's milk wheel aged for months. Strain through muslin if visibly dirty.
• •1/4 tsp thermophilic starter culture, Traditional farms use whey from the previous day's make; a pinch of MA4001 or similar sheep-cheese starter is the closest home substitute.
• •1/8 tsp liquid kid rennet, Rennet from unweaned kids is traditional; calf rennet is an acceptable home substitute but is not authentic. Dilute in 30 ml (2 tbsp) cool non-chlorinated water.
• •200 g (7 oz) food-grade sea salt for brine, Dissolved at 18 percent in 1 L (4 cups) cool water; non-iodised.
• •100 g (3.5 oz) dry salt for rind, Coarse, non-iodised.
• •200 g (7 oz) smoking wood and shrubs, Mix of dry lentisk (Pistacia lentiscus) prunings, olive trimmings, and holm oak. Apple or cherry wood may be substituted at home; do not use resinous softwoods.

Steps

1. 1 Milk choice, read first: use pasteurised sheep's milk. True Fiore Sardo is raw milk made in licensed dairies, where the acidity, salt and cave humidity are checked. A raw-milk wheel aged at home for months has no such guarantees, and sheep's milk cheeses are among those linked to Listeria.
2. 2 Heat the pasteurised sheep's milk to 35 C (95 F) in a stainless-steel pot. Hold at this temperature and stir in the starter culture; ripen for 45 minutes until the milk drops 0.2 pH units or develops a faint clean tang. This acidity is part of what protects the wheel during a long aging.
3. 3 Dilute the kid rennet in 30 ml (2 tbsp) cool water and stir gently into the milk using an up-and-down motion for 1 minute. Cover and hold at 35 C (95 F) for 35 to 45 minutes until a clean break forms; the curd should split cleanly when cut with a knife and the whey should be pale yellow-green, not white.
4. 4 Cut the curd into 1.5 cm (1/2 in) cubes with a long knife, then let it rest 5 minutes. Slowly raise the temperature to 42 C (108 F) over 20 minutes while stirring very gently. Hold for a further 15 minutes until the curds are firm and squeak when pressed between the fingers.
5. 5 Drain the whey through cheesecloth set over a colander, reserving the curds. Let the curd mass drain under its own weight for 15 minutes, then chop into rough fist-sized pieces and press by hand into two traditional wooden moulds (or food-grade plastic moulds) lined with cane or basket-weave matting if you have them; this is what creates the signature rind pattern. Press at 4 kg (9 lb) for 30 minutes, flip, then 9 kg (20 lb) for 12 hours at room temperature (18 to 22 C / 64 to 72 F).
6. 6 Unmould and submerge the wheels in cold 18 percent brine (200 g sea salt dissolved in 1 L / 4 cups water) at 12 to 14 C (54 to 57 F). Hold for 2.5 hours per kg of cheese, about 2.5 to 3 hours for 1 kg wheels. The brine should not drop below pH 5.0; if it does, shorten the brining time.
7. 7 Remove the wheels, pat dry, and dry-salt the rinds: sprinkle coarse salt on the exposed faces twice over 48 hours in a 12 C (54 F) room, turning daily. The rind should feel firm and leathery before smoking.
8. 8 Cold-smoke the wheels at 18 to 22 C (64 to 72 F) for 12 to 18 hours over a smouldering mix of lentisk, olive and holm oak. The internal temperature of the cheese must not exceed 25 C (77 F): this is a cold smoke, not a hot cook. Use a stovetop smoker or dedicated cold-smoker; never smoke in a closed indoor room, because smouldering wood gives off carbon monoxide.
9. 9 Age the smoked wheels in a wine fridge or cool cellar at 10 to 12 C (50 to 54 F) and 85 percent relative humidity, checked with a hygrometer, for a minimum of 3 months for fresco, 6 months for stagionato, or 9 to 12 months for riserva. Turn and rub the rinds with dry salt twice weekly for the first month, then once weekly. A thin rind mottling (the 'flowers') should develop; if surface mould appears, wipe with a cloth dampened in 5 percent salt water.
10. 10 Check the acidity before committing to a long age: at about 3 weeks measure the pH of a crumbled sample with a dairy pH meter or narrow-range strips. It should be below 5.2. Above 5.3 the wheel is not acidic enough to age for months, so eat it within a few weeks rather than storing it.
11. 11 Dispose rather than salvage: throw the wheel away if the rind turns slimy or sticky, if pink, black or blue growth appears that is not the surface mould you expected, or if the paste smells of ammonia or solvent. Do not cut off the offending part and keep the rest, because mould and bacteria spread invisibly through an aged cheese.
12. 12 Test for finished character at 3 months: the rind should be hard and inedible, the paste firm and ivory to pale straw, and a small wedge should taste distinctly smoky, salty and pungent. People who are pregnant, very young, elderly or immunocompromised should choose commercially made, industrially tested sheep's cheese rather than a home make.