Recipe: Cheese straws

Martin's Cheese Sticks. Photo / Jason Burgess

Martin Aspinwall also sent me this recipe. It may seem long but the telling of it reflects his wonderful verbosity and willingness to share.

"We make cheese straws mainly to use up the odds and ends of cheeses which are a bit dry or odd shaped and we don't want to sell. It's a real mixture and we try to get a balance of types, though not too much goat or blue because they can be a little overpowering.

The best cheeses are the harder ones - Cheddar, Gruyere, Raclette, Gouda, hard sheep's cheese, Parmesan, Emmentaler, Cheshire, Red Leicester. Don't use mild cheese, low fat, Edam or young Cheddar/Gouda, go for strong and mature otherwise the flavour won't come through. It doesn't matter if your cheese bits have been in the fridge a while and are a bit stale or even a little mouldy, give them a scrape, and grate or toss them in a food processor until you have a fairly fine, workable pile.

"We make our own flaky pastry using local Karikaas unsalted butter. Readers might want to buy ready-made from the supermarket."

To make a dozen fairly chunky straws 30cm long

• 250g grated cheese
• 600g pastry

1. Roll out the pastry into one large sheet and egg-wash it.

2. Mentally divide it into three lengthwise.

3. Place a third of the cheese into the centre third of the pastry and add a little cayenne, a pinch of salt, a grind of pepper and a sprinkle of caraway seeds and fold over one of the sides.

4. Heap just over half the remaining cheese on to the pastry you have just folded, and fold over the final flap of pastry to make a thick sandwich.

5. Roll this out to the same dimensions again and divide lengthwise into 12 equal strips (each one just over 1 inch wide by 9 inches long).

6. Twist each strip and hand roll on your table (taking care to keep the pasty twisted) until you have a straw about 12 inches long by about ¾ inch wide. Transfer to a baking tray covered with baking parchment.

7. Repeat with each strip of pastry. They need to be placed on the tray so that there is a gap between each straw because they will puff up when cooking.

8. Egg-wash and sprinkle with remaining cheese, more cayenne (if you like), caraway seeds and salt. Chill for at least 30 minutes.

9. Cook in a hot 200C oven until golden.