Maker Β· Cheese
Oudwijker: Italian-style cheese from Dutch milk
Rutger and Marieke traded their office jobs for an apprenticeship at an Italian family cheesemaker. Back in the Lopiker region they now make Italian-inspired cheese from Dutch milk: cow from Cothen, buffalo from Heusden. Soft rinds and complex flavours.
The story
Who's behind it
Oudwijker is Rutger and Marieke. About ten years ago they swapped their office jobs for cheesemaking, with an apprenticeship at an Italian family cheesemaker on Lago di Monate in northern Italy. Back in the Netherlands they started their own cheesemaking facility in Benschop, in the Lopiker region near Lopikerkapel. It's a production site of about 100 square metres. They make cheese five days a week.
The milk comes from nearby. Rutger drives a mobile tank in his van to the farm and picks up the morning milk himself. Cow milk comes from Brienenshof in Cothen, buffalo milk from the Vlemmix family in Heusden. Buffalo milk contains more fat and protein than cow milk, which gives the cheeses made from it a different ageing and a fuller texture.
The cheeses
Italian recipes, Dutch milk. The cheeses build on known Italian styles. Fiore and Toma Cigno follow the Taleggio method, Lazuli follows Gorgonzola, Toma Pietra an Alpine-style mountain cheese. The milk and the method turn each one into its own Dutch version.
Six cheeses, three rind types. Oudwijker makes red-smear (Fiore, Stella), white mould (Toma Cigno) and blue (Lazuli, Colosso) side by side, plus the mountain cheese Toma Pietra. All have natural rinds that need time; Toma Pietra ages six to eight weeks, and Colosso goes into wheels of about 12 kilos after two days of salting and turning.
Cow and buffalo under one roof. Two kinds of milk give you two registers on the menu. The cow's milk cheeses are approachable and versatile. The buffalo cheeses Colosso and Stella are bolder and deserve a spot where they stand out.
In your kitchen
On a board you can tell guests where the cheese comes from: made in the Lopiker region, from milk collected that morning at a farm in Cothen or Heusden, with a technique from Italy. Serve Fiore or Toma Cigno warm and runny in a dish, use Lazuli as a sauce, and keep Stella and Colosso for the moment when the cheese itself takes the lead.
Chefβs tip
Colosso and Stella are buffalo cheeses with high fat and protein content. Let them come to room temperature and set them untouched on the board or let them just melt over a warm dish. That keeps the structure creamy.
How to use it
Ideas for your menu
Fiore over baked potato or in risotto
Red-bacteria cheese on Taleggio recipe. Melts young and creamy; use as a Taleggio substitute in risotto or let a slice melt over a baked potato with thyme.
Lazuli in a blue cheese sauce
Blue-veined cheese on a Gorgonzola base, salty, sweet and spicy with notes of pepper, wood and chocolate. Melts into a sauce for gnocchi or steak, or crumble over salad with pear and walnut.
Toma Cigno as warm, flowing cheese
White mold on Taleggio base, longer aged. Young: sweet and refined; older: lightly sour with thyme, fennel and nuttiness. Let it run over polenta, bread or roasted vegetables.
Stella and Colosso on the aperitif or cheese board
Two buffalo cheeses: Stella red-bacteria, lightly smoky towards leather; Colosso blue with cream, licorice, bay leaf and pure chocolate. Serve plain with nuts, honey or dark fruit.
For your menu
βOudwijker from Benschop: Italian-inspired cow and buffalo cheese from Dutch milk.β
Products from Oudwijker
What we carry from this maker
Colosso
Blue mold from buffalo milk (Vlemmix, Heusden). Creamy ivory cheese with fine blue veins; creamy and sweet, then peppery, salty and woody with licorice, bay leaf, hay and pure chocolate.
Fiore
Red bacteria from pasteurised cow milk on Taleggio recipe. Young: fresh with citrus, beech nut and chestnut; older: more aromatic, lightly smoky and buttery.
Lazuli
Blue-veined from cow milk (Brienenshof, Cothen) on Gorgonzola base. Thick, rough natural rind; light yellow cheese with dark blue veins, soft and lightly crumbly. Salty, sweet and spicy.
Stella
Red bacteria from buffalo milk. Compact-looking but melting ivory cheese; lightly sweet and earthy with yeast, butter, hay, nut and white chocolate, older smoky towards stable and leather.
Toma Cigno
White mold from cow milk (Brienenshof, Cothen), longer-aged Taleggio variant. Rough rind with white interior, creamy cheese; young: sweet, older: complex with thyme, fennel, grass and nut.
Toma Pietra
Alpine-inspired mountain cheese from cow milk, aged six to eight weeks. Sticky orange-brown rind; firm, lightly crumbly interior that turns softer just under the rind. Sweet dairy, sour cream, wood and cardamom.
Prices and availability are in the portal. Become a customer or log in to order.
Taste it in your own kitchen
Book a no-obligation tasting with Niels and taste it for yourself.