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Smoked Cretan Graviera with Thyme
This homemade smoked graviera with thyme is a semi hard yellow sheep and goat’s cheese studded with flowers from the herb for a highly aromatic and nutty cheese that really stands out. It is lovingly watched and hand-smoked for three days over sage, thyme, holly oak, acorns and cypress sprigs for a subtle woodiness and a botanical infusion. It comes from the remote mountains of Sfakia in western Crete, where cheesemaker Tsitsiridis took over the family business straight out of dairy school. He hand makes this, and other award winning cheeses daily, supporting local milk producers.
As low as
£6.75
Net content: 150g-2.4kg
Packaging: Wax paper (cut and packed by M&G)
Ingredients: Pasteurised Sheep's & Goat's Milk 100%, Rennet
Allergens: Milk
Packaging: Wax paper (cut and packed by M&G)
Ingredients: Pasteurised Sheep's & Goat's Milk 100%, Rennet
Allergens: Milk
Wonderful in a modern Greek spin on cauliflower cheese.
Manousos Tsitsiridis, Sfakia, Crete
In 1994, having just graduated from the Dairy School of Ioannina, 35-year-old Manousos Tsitsiridis took over the family cheese business in Askifou, Sfakia. Using an old family recipe, he started to make cheese daily from November through to July, a total of 60 tons of cheese a year, exclusively with local milk, supplied by 35 farmers in the region. The west of Crete, and the area of Sfakia in particular, are remote and wild, with plenty of pasture for the sheep to graze on, from the low plains by the sea in winter, to the high montains in summer. The exceptionally diverse flora of the cretan landscape enrich the flavour of the milk and Manousos uses some of the herbs directly in his cheesmaking, with his smoked thyme graviera. He produces a full range of traditional Cretan cheeses, from galomzyithra, a set cream cheese used in both sweet and savoury pastries, a light whey anthotiro, which is like fresh ricotta, and different ages of PDO Crete Graviera.