A silk purse from a sow's ear

FROMAGE FORT - OTHERWISE KNOWN AS CHEESE CROCK OR JIBNEH BEYDA

David had made some of his lovely bread yesterday, so for lunch today I decided to have simple bread and cheese. The other reason for doing this is that we have a huge amount of cheese in the fridge and some of it is getting old. There are little bits and pieces as well as huge chunks. So that's what I had - I used up two of the bits - just simple bread and cheese, But this is what I could have done with the bits.

The French have something called Fromage Fort which is an amalgam of leftover bits of cheese combined with wine, garlic and herbs - some people even add stock. It's actually one of those dishes that is perfectly suited to modern living. You can pile it all into the food processor add whatever you fancy in the way of extra flavour and then serve as a dip - a very modern thing. You need the wine to loosen it. I guess it's one of those dishes born out of penny pinching. Waste not, want not. Obviously the cheeses you combine will also affect the flavour and apparently the French nearly always add some blue cheese. But this is entirely up to you. One of those simple but infinitely variable and potentially posh dishes.

The picture of the finished product though is called Cheese Crock and is from delicious' Valli Little. Here is her recipe - to show how you can vary the basic idea. She actually makes it from just cheddar but she does say at the start of the recipe that it is the perfect way to use all the little bits of leftover cheese that are lurking in the back of the fridge. She obviously uses the cottage cheese and the kirsch to soften it.

CHEESE CROCK

4 cups grated cheddar cheese

120g cream cheese, softened

2 tbs olive oil

1 garlic clove, crushed

1 tsp dried mustard powder

3 tsp kirsch

Additional leftover cheeses (optional)

Slices of grilled bread, to serve

In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the cheddar cheese, cream cheese, oil, garlic, mustard and kirsch, and season with salt. This is the base mix for the crock, which can be used as a dip to serve with grilled bread. You can also add to the crock base by beating in any other leftover cheeses (such as goats cheese, mild blue, cheddar, etc.) with a little more cream cheese and oil, plus 2 teaspoons of kirsch for every cup of added cheese.

Store the cheese in an earthenware or ceramic crock and cover the top of the mixture with a little kirsch. Keeps for about 3 weeks, refrigerated. (One article said that you could freeze it.)

The basic French recipe is 500g cheese, 1/4 cup wine, clove of garlic, salt and pepper. Lots of room for improvisation there.

I was about to finish this when I remembered that Claudia Roden had a similar recipe (though not with leftover cheese) in her Mediterranean Cookery book. Her version originates from Egypt and uses 250g feta, milk (optional), 300ml yoghurt, 2 tbsp each of parsley, mint and dill, finely chopped, 2-3 tablespoons olive oil and juice of 1/2 lemon. Very Mediterranean. Now I have made this and it was delicious, but then I love feta.