How Red Fox Red Leicester Cheese Is Made | Ep 1 How Food Is Made

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Come see HOW RED LEICESTER CHEESE IS MADE at Belton Farm, home of Red Fox Aged Red Leicester Cheese.

My new series, HOW FOOD IS MADE, takes us to Whitchurch, on the edge of Wales and England to visit Belton Farm, makers of Red Fox, an aged Red Leicester with a cunningly unexpected crunch.

In this series, we will explore How Food Is Made by visiting farms, factories and more to see how our food is made, and what it goes through before hitting supermarket shelves. After visiting where our food is made, we head back into my kitchen where we will create a delicious recipe together using the food we have seen being made.

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Timings:
00:00 - Intro
00:06 - History of Belton Farm and Red Fox Cheese
00:38 - Part 1: Cheesemaking Process
00:54 - Curds and Whey
02:27 - Salting
02:59 - Tasting the Curds
03:11 - Pressing the Curds to Remove Moisture
03:57 - Maturation
04:19 - Packaging
04:34 - Part 2: In The Kitchen
04:38 - The Recipe: Cheese Toastie
05:10 - Prepping the Toastie
08:40 - Grilling
08:58 - Eating
09:12 - Outro

HOW RED FOX CHEESE IS MADE

Back in 1922, Stanley Becket left his family's business in Manchester to go work at Belton Farm as a student. He eventually ended up buying the farm and since then Belton Farm has gone on to produce multi-award winning cheese.

In 2012, Belton introduced a new modern British cheese called Red Fox. The Red Fox cheese is a unique recipe, developed over many years, and creates a russet-coloured, crunchy and absolutely delicious cheese that is loved by many. The Red Fox name refers to the weather vane that has been atop a building at Belton Farm since 1815.

After seeing the history of Belton Farm, and exploring a little bit, we get our hair nets, jackets and boots on, and head in to see Red Fox cheese being made.

Andy, Belton’s dairy manager, is taking us each step of the way through how Belton makes their Red Fox cheese. Although we didn’t see the milk being collected, pasteurised and cooled, that is the first step in the cheesemaking process.

Once the milk is in the vats, starter culture is added to the milk to ripen it. When ripe, the vegetarian rennet can be added, which sets the milk. The set is then cut to form curds and whey.

Once the curds and whey are formed, they are poured onto the first table here which is where the whey is drained off.

The curds move along each table and more whey is removed. They are tested constantly by the cheesemakers to ensure the acidity is where it needs to be for the next step of the cheesemaking process. When the right level of acidity is reached, the salt is added.

Belton is still using the traditional method where the cheesemakers add the salt by hand.

The curds are then popped on a conveyor belt that moves them over to the next area in the factory. Andy and I are trying the curds, and honestly, they taste so good. The texture at this point is similar to a halloumi. I could have eaten a whole bag of those curds then and there, they’re already so delicious.

The curds are then put into a cheesecloth and pressed a few more times, until all liquid is removed. The next couple of clips have some hydraulic presses in them and it’s so satisfying to watch.

Andy showed me how they put these metal boxes together which hold the cheese while it’s being pressed.

In this box, the cheese is formed into its shape and pressed for 18 hours to make sure it is ready for its next location - cold storage for maturation. The cheese looks huge at this point, but after the cold storage maturation, it’ll get cut to size.

The whole cheesemaking process takes about 23 hours from pasteurisation to storage before the process starts over again. Once packaged up and labelled, which Belton Farm do in house, the cheese is sent out to supermarkets nationally like Tesco, Waitrose, Morrisons, Ocado and speciality stores as well as international shops, too.

Now that we have seen the cheesemaking process, we head back to London and into my kitchen to make a recipe.

IN THE KITCHEN: RED FOX, BACON AND ONION TOASTIE

We are making this toastie with sourdough, red onion, garlic mayo, crispy bacon and Red Fox cheese. We are cooking our red onions in some olive oil until softened and crisping up the bacon in the air fryer. This is one of my favourite ways to cook bacon. To assemble, we layer everything up, lather some mayo on the outside and pop onto my grill (a frying pan will work, too) until the outside is crispy and toasted and inside, the cheese is all melted. Josh and I enjoyed our toasties together at the end.

#cheese #cheesemaking #cheeserecipe