Pecorino cheese from Italy
 

We just returned from a fabulous trip touring around Umbria in Italy. We bought a wheel of fresh Pecorino cheese in Pienza and would like some advice on storing it once cut into which will be tonight. Yum! I know it will be considered fresh for a month and then will start to age and harden. Would like to cut in half and store one half somewhere. Any ideas or experience with this? Thank you.

wrap the cheese in plastic wrap and store in the cold drawer in your refrigerator. If you have a vacuum sealer, you could use it to seal the part you want to store in the refrigerator cold drawer. If you are serving the cheese on a platter, after its been refrigerated, take it out of portion you will serve from refrigerator and let stand for about an hour, so that it warms up and the flavors come out when eating.

Do not wrap in plastic! Wrap in butcher paper / waxed paper or cheesecloth. Then store in the fridge. Enjoy your pecorino!

A Percorino dish from a wine bar in Settignano

Thinly slice a whole pear through the axis, seeds and all, and layer with thin slices of percorino on plates. Drizzle olive oil over and grind pepper on top. Very simple but it looks and tastes lovely.

I bought a mandolin just to make this but a sharp knife will do.

not plastic, use either aluminium foil with a breather valve built in (if you are not sure what I'm on about, you have not got one) or cheese cloth.

Put in a dry cool room (a fridge will dry it out as the defrost function cuts in)

Storing half, there will be a problem. A month seems like a long time without a natural skin to protect it and you are not offering it a chance to grow a skin. I'd certainly keep a very close eye on it.

Plastic wrap, apart from not allowing the cheese to breathe, reacts with the fat in the cheese. No fatty food, such as cheese, should be stored in contact with plastic wrap, unless you like to serve your cheese with diethylhexyl adipate. The amounts might be tiny, but the idea isn't appetizing.

Harold McGee says wax paper. Harold McGee is never wrong.

Another NO PLASTIC. But it will dry out in wax/parchment paper over time.
It would be worth getting a vacuum sealer (although I don't know how large this wheel is). You could cut it into useable chunks and store in the fridge for a LONG time.
You would LOVE a vac sealer anyway. Get a "plain" Food Saver or look on Amazon for some/many new types that are VERY reasonable.

The aluminum-foil method recommended in the Chowhound piece is the one that I've used with good results.

Agree with others that vacuum sealers are awesome. I have a chamber vacuum sealer at home and it is awesome.

I gather there is nothing harmful in the plastic those sealers use, is that absolutely correct?

We were in Tuscany with some American friends and bought some good Pecorino from a small local supermarket.

On their return to Texas they found a similar Pecorino at Costco.

<i>I gather there is nothing harmful in the plastic those sealers use, is that absolutely correct?</i>

Assuming you are buying your bags from a reputable source, the plastic is food grade. Whether that sufficiently allays your concerns is a personal question, but the competent authorities in the US and EU would have no problem with their use.

With regard to cheese and the specific risk of interaction with plastic that some people point to, that is a contact issue and you could simply wrap it in wax paper first before sealing to avoid it.

Yes, that is correct--you can even cook in that plastic. It also doesn't react with the cheese, of course, because there is no air. It isn't the same as wrapping it in plastic wrap or Ziploc bags.

The reaction I'm talking about doesn't depend on air. Not all reactions are oxidation. The problem is that the fat leaches chemicals out of plastic. It does depend on the type of plastic, of course. I was talking about plastic wrap.

I have previously frozen cheese with some success. There was no discernible diminution in quality once it was defrosted. [alternatively, I have a very poor palate]. I defrosted it at room temp.

We have an apartment in Tuscany and bring pecorino back for ourselves and friends 2-3 times per year. Our preferred method of preservation is to quarter the wheel when we get home, eat one and vacuum seal the others until needed. We find that the sealed cheeses are perfectly fresh even after 8-9 months in the frigo.

Don't freeze this cheese, particularly in a chunk. It will really change the consistency, and if vac sealed, is not at all necessary.

Here is another method of keeping this cheese--interesting. And it brings to mind that we were given a cheese keeper, like the ones that used to be on the grocery counters long ago--look in LLBean. It was a cheese dome that you put the wheel of cheese in. The bottom was deeply ribbed and you poured vinegar in there.

http://www.wikihow.com/Store-Cheese-...sfully-at-Home