Tom’s Pimento Cheese

After eating grits with pimento cheese at Biscuit Head, I’ve gotten where I like a spoonful in the grits I cook at home. I’ve just been using the standard Ruth’s brand. I got ahold of some locally made at a farmer’s market and it was so good I decided to try my hand at making pimento cheese.

It seemed easy enough. I looked at several recipes online and decided to combine and modify them to my liking. I made some rookie mistakes, so when I do this again I’m going to do it differently. Here’s my version with the way I SHOULD have done it…

Ingredients:

• 1 lb block of sharp cheddar cheese (Don’t use pre-shredded. It won’t work. They add an ingredient to keep the cheese from clumping in the package and it inhibits binding when you mix everything.)
• 8 oz package of cream cheese
• 1/2 cup of mayonnaise (Duke’s, of course)
• 4 oz jar of diced pimentos. More, if you want. If I were making this again, I might use 2 of these jars.
• 1 tspn pickle juice
• 1 tspn cayenne pepper, or to taste
• 1 tspn paprika
• 1.5 oz of Skyy Vodka
• 3 Queen olives with pimentos
• ice

Procedure:

1. First, place the vodka and ice in a shaker and shake in a waltz rhythm for 3³ (27) measures while counting 1-2-3, 1-2-3, etc. Place the queen olives in your favorite stemware and pour the vodka over it. Add a bit of the olive brine, if preferred. Set aside after taking an initial sip.
2. Shred the cheese using a standard cheese grater. Divide it into 1/3 and 2/3 portions. In a food processor, add 2/3 of the cheese, all of the mayonnaise and cream cheese, cayenne, paprika, and pickle juice. Combine until mixed.
3. Take a copious sip of the vodka martini
4. In a mixing bowl, add the mixture from the food processor and the rest of the cheddar cheese. Add the diced pimentos. Stir until mixed thoroughly.
5. Serve as a sandwich or with crackers along with the rest of the martini, if any is left.
6. Refrigerate the remaining pimento cheese

Makes a whole heap (About 4+ cups. Cheese expands when you shred it.)

Observations:

• Don’t add the pimentos until the end. I made the mistake of putting them in the food processor and it pulverized them. They are better in chunks.
• Adding part of the shredded cheese later creates a better texture so that it’s not all mushy.
• Most of the recipes I found online called for 2 cups of shredded cheddar. That’s about a 1/2 block. Mixed with the amount of cream cheese and mayo called for in these recipes, it was just not enough. If you’re going to use 2 cups of cheddar, then use half of the cream cheese and mayo.

Variations:

The recipes I found had lots of different ingredients – garlic powder, salt and pepper, jalapeños, etc. I’d also like to try different cheeses. The one I got from the farmer’s market used gouda instead of cheddar.

The beauty of this recipe is that once you have your base mixture, you can start to experiment. Separate a bit into a bowl and add different things. This way you don’t contaminate your whole batch.

I decided to try a taste test by adding heat three different ways – pickled jalapeños, Tabasco™, and Tajin™. The Tajin just didn’t work with the cheese, so scratch that. The Tabasco was good, but tended to overwhelm the other flavors. I would dial it back. Laura and I both like the jalapeños the best, but that also has a tendency to dominate. I guess the lesson would be to use these in moderation so that they don’t overpower the essence of the pimento cheese.

I had a bit of Ruth’s left, so I did a side-by-side comparison. With mine the cream cheese seems to dominate the cheddar. Ruth’s has more sharp cheese flavor. Next time I’m going to use extra sharp cheddar and maybe cut back on the cream cheese.