About Italian Pizza Cheese

Region of Origin: Parma, Reggio Emilia, Modena, and Bologna in Emilia-Romagna; and Mantova in Lomardy. Type of milk: Cow

Aged: 3 months or longer Notes: Perfumy, fruity, and brazen—this is the Italian answer to gruyere. Fontina d’Aosta is made from the raw, fresh milk from a single milking of Valdostana cows in the Valle d’Aosta, in the Italian Alps. These 20-ish-pound wheels are firm and supple. Real, DOC-protected fontina’s flavors are a grand symphony of fruits and nuts and herbs.

Region of Origin: Emilia-Romagna

Type of milk: Cow

Aged: About 2 years

Notes: An enormously flavorful, important cheese. Law dictates that Parmigiano-Reggiano can be made only between April and November so that the cow’s graze on fresh, verdant pastures rather than dry hay. The milk, and thus the cheese, adopts a remarkable complexity of flavors—at once spicy, salty, briny, black walnutty, and lavishly piquant. Will melt in your mouth and tingle your tongue, or make the flavors in your cooking sing. Serve: On top of Pizza when cooking or as finish great on pasta, risotto, eggs, veggies, meat dishes, salads, soups. Break out a big, bad Italian red: Barbaresco, Barbera, Barolo, Brunello, Chianti, etc.

Aged: Varies greatly from a few months to over a year. More age means sharper, more intense flavor.

Serve:  Makes a great pizza by itself or combined with shredded American mozzarella. Its stingy and melts beautifully. A great sandwich cheese with broccoli rabe, or roast pork, or meatballs. Melt in omelets. Or serve with a cold beer and a bowl of olives.

The region of Origin: From the Po Valley to the Alpine pastures between the Asiago Plateau and the Trentino’s highlands.

Type of milk: Cow

Aged: From a few weeks (fresco) to nearly a year (Vecchio).

Notes: This is a cheese that goes down easy: mild, lactic, supple. Young asiago is springy and soft; with age, the texture changes to hard-as-Parmesan. The flavors intensify in the aged varieties but never become sharp or biting.

Serve: A perfect Pizza Flavor booster we love to grate this cheese on put just a pinch on all the pizza we make. It’s also a perfect munching cheese, especially with salami, good bread, and an amber ale. Fresco is best for sandwiches and salads; aged asiago is great grated and strewn on pasta, salads, and grains and Pizza!

Region of Origin: Piedmont

Type of milk: Robiola is the generic name for fresh, snowy cheeses from Piedmont made with cow, goat, or sheep’s milk; or often a combination of the three.

Aged: About a week

Notes: Moist, tangy, rindless, with a just-about-to-melt ice cream texture. This is a really lovely family of cheese–Italy’s answer to a triple-crème. The cream is often added, and the flavor is usually creamy, soft, and sweet. I like Robiola Bosina, made with the “due latte” of sheep and cow’s milk; and also Robiola Rocchetta, made from all three kinds of milk and relentlessly dense and lush.Serve: With a glass of Prosecco, or a salad pizza!

So make great pizza and discover all types of Italian Pizza Cheese !!