Queso servilleta artesanal
The origins of Servilleta cheese are pastoral. Servilleta is a raw goat milk cheese made near Llanera de Ranes, in the Comunidad Valenciana. Shepherds milk their goats and the women make the fresh and sweet cheese named “servilleta”.
The name servilleta given to this traditional cheese, derives from the usage of farmers’ wives to employ cotton cloth napkins to give its special shape. The folds of the cloth leave marks on the top of the cheese that radiate from a central knot created by the napkin.
This cheese is also made with Murcian-Granada goat milk and Guirra sheep milk in La Costera de Ranes (Valencia) and in Alto Vinalopó (Alicante).
The coagulation is enzymatic and the moderate pressing give to the cheese a compacted paste. It is salted by immersion in brine, it is not maturated.
The shape is parallelepiped, globose but flattened, with rounded edges. It has no rind but the surface is smooth, clean and white or pale yellow in color. The interior appearance is firm, compact, with some very small "eyes" unevenly distributed, but sometimes without them. In the eared straw-colored to pale yellow, depending on age. The texture to the touch is slightly rough, somewhat damp and a little elastic.
It has a mild initial taste that opens up to its distinctive mild goat taste with a well-balanced buttery finish.
The pasteurised version is quite well known, but raw milk is very rarely found.
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