Cheese Friday: Thankful

It's Cheese With a Crunch

By MARK BITTMAN N.Y. Times

Published: November 23, 2005

It took me until midlife to realize that the beloved Cheez-Its of my childhood (or the inferior but still pretty good Cheese Nips) were based on a real pastry: cheese cracker, commonly called cheese straws. These can be as simple as Cheddar cheese, flour and a little binder, or as elaborate as puff pastry with cheese folded into it. When I finally did "discover" cheese straws, I was so thrilled that I pursued the most difficult recipe possible, and stuck with that for years.

Gradually I realized that by making the process simpler and using better ingredients, I could enjoy cheese straws more often. Now they're my default homemade finger food for guests.

The simplification involved what has become my standard approach to pastry: dump everything in the food processor and try not to overdo it (with tender pastries like this one, you want to process only until the ingredients are combined).

This cut the mixing time from several minutes to several seconds. You still have to cut the straws out by hand, but there's no way around that. You can use a pasta machine set to fettuccine width, but in terms of time, I find it's pretty much a wash.

What makes a huge difference is the quality of ingredients: I replace some of the Cheddar with Parmesan, which improves the flavor immeasurably. I also use a good amount of butter. The result is the Platonic ideal of the Cheez-It, what its inventor was trying to duplicate.

Of course if you don't want the ideal but a regular Cheez-It, you could use all Cheddar, and margarine instead of butter. You can also abandon the classic cheese straw shape and cut tiny squares. Good luck.

Here's the video
Here's the recipe