The Chef: Jason Hammel (Lula Cafe) The Challenger: Duncan Biddulph (Rootstock) The Ingredient: Gjetost
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Invented about 150 years ago in Norway, gjetost is made from whey, milk, and cream boiled together until the milk sugars caramelize. “It’s really creamy and super sweet, kind of like if dulce de leche was a cheese,” Jason Hammel said. Both cow’s and goat’s milk are used, and he thinks the goat’s milk contributes to the cheese’s characteristic taste, adding “this barnyard quality to the sweetness. It tastes like dulce de leche with some farm funk tossed in.”
Because the cheese is so sweet, Hammel said, “it needs to be tempered with some kind of bitterness. It needs other textures to it, because by itself it’s a little cloying, the sweetness of it.” He decided to make a leek and celery-root gratin, cooking the vegetables slowly in a pan with butter and white wine.
Video by Michael Gebert/Sky Full of Bacon
Who’s Next:
John Anderes of Telegraph Wine Bar, working with ash. “It has multiple meanings, and that’s why I like it,” Hammel said. “It’s not one thing. Wood ash, but it could also be the ash of something cooked on a fire that has a vegetable component to it.”
