Montagu Cheese

We (Denham – sheep and game farmer & Louise – animal behaviourist and dog trainer) purchased Montagu Cheese 10 years ago from a man who had a passion for old Dutch Cheese. Through trial and error, he was able to use old Dutch recipes to make beautiful artisanal cheese. Most of the recipes he found in an discarded recipe book but the recipe for plaaskaas he was given from descendant of a farmer that came to South Africa on a ship many, many years ago.

Montagu Cheese is a high-quality artisan cheese made in the traditional Dutch style by Denham who has made it for 10 years and learnt the old tricks from the original Montagu cheese makers. It is made slowly and by hand and is pressed in antique wooden cheese presses. Our cheese has no artificial additives, preservatives, flavourants or maturation agents and is suitable for vegetarians.

Our cheese is matured for various amounts of time on wooden shelves where the rounds are monitored and turned to ensure the best maturation conditions. It is made from free range, organic jersey cow’s milk, non-animal rennet and specific diary cultures.

Our plaaskaas is washed, has no salt added but is placed in a brine bath for a few days. Our in-house flavours are infused with organic, non iodated herbs or spices. Our plaaskaas, Komijnkaas (cumin seeds) and Spotted black (crushed and whole black pepper) are boerenkaas, made in the boerenkaas style but our plaaskaas recipe has been tweaked so although a boerenkaas there is a slight difference and therefore you will find no other cheese like it is South Africa. Our old boerenkaas is called Montagu Mature. Parmesan like in flavour and texture. We do not have a lot of it available as it takes so long to mature.

We started making cheddar due to client demand, and because we did not follow a standard recipe for our boerenkaas (plaaskaas), we thought why follow a standard cheddar recipe. So, we tweaked it and therefore we have a cheddar, but it isn’t typical – it is better! We sell a young cheddar and an older cheddar. The twang and flavour intensifies with age and the preference depends entirely on one’s pallet.

Our milk is from cows that are pasture fed and are fed no grains or other hormone enriched feeds so our cows could be supplying a lot more milk with certain supplements, but this is not our philosophy. All pastures, if not natural grass, are sown and watered and the cows can graze freely on the land. Pasture is harvested to utilise in times of drought, or if a little more feed is required during colder weather. Our cream content is a lot higher in winter due to the winter rainfall we get. One can also note the subtle flavour changes in our milk, cream and cheese depending on the season and what the cows are eating. We do not take any cream off our milk before making cheese so when we decided to make butter, we bought cream in from a neighbouring farmer.

We started making butter as we love butter so began by making it in our kitchen for our own home use. We then decided to start advertising it slowly but had no butter churn! We used a “Denham designed whisk” that he made and attached to a drill. The first couple of hundred blocks took us some time but we were able to see where to make some changes and try a few different things. We now have a churn but still hand knead, salt and block. So yes, our blocks of butter are not the neatest, but they taste great!

The by product of our butter making is proper buttermilk, one can use this is baking, can drink it, can sour it and can apparently heat apples in it which is delicious (a Belgium recipe we believe). So now we sell buttermilk and cream too. Specifically, to offer a full basket to restaurants and guesthouses/hotels.

Our cheese is our passion and although times have been hard over the past two years, we have slogged on and kept going. Some months are easier than others, but we continue to try make a quality product and offer a good service to our clients.

Yours in Cheese (& butter)

Denham & Louise