Cornish Yarg With Nettles

Cornish Yarg is a striking, nettle-wrapped cheese whose delicately earthy rind gives way a buttery breakdown and crumbly core, with notes of lemon and yoghurt.

At some point in the 1980s, while digging around in his attic, Cornish farmer Alan Gray stumbled across a 17th century recipe for nettle-wrapped cheese and set about recreating it.

Today the cheese is produced by Catherine Mead and her team at Lynher Dairies in Ponsanooth, Cornwall and is loosely based on a Caerphilly recipe. It is wrapped in stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) that are completely edible. The nettles are hand-picked from the local Cornish countryside when they are a bright, vibrant green, and frozen for use throughout the year.

A team of nettlers applies the leaves in elegant concentric circles, once the cheeses have been removed from their moulds and brined ready for maturation. The leaves protect the cheese, while allowing it to breathe and attract the specific moulds that encourage the beautiful almost lace-like appearance of the rind to develop. This in turn begins to break down the interior of the cheese, although the texture remains gently crumbly in nature.

Made solely from milk from Lynher Dairy’s own herd of Ayrshire cows, the Yarg is matured there for 21 to 28 days before being released to the market and the cheese shops up and down the land 

Each cheese is made with pasteurised milk and vegetarian rennet making it suitable for eating by pregnant women and with its distinctive nettle covered rind makes it a fabulous addition to any cheese boards.