Blue sheep cheese, with an extravagant and goliardic name, conferred more than anything else by a play on words as we like to do. The basic is our Piparello cheese, to which the penicillium roqueforti molds are added, drilled and seasoned. The name comes from the fact that it is one of the smallest blue cheeses in size, therefore Smurf, and is blue like the Smurfs, with the ending “rello” of “Pipa”, which has therefore become definitively Smurf.

To describe it I would say that it is appetizing, greedy, tasty, smurky. Jokes aside, it is a blue with its characteristic tinginess but also a lot of sweetness. It is not intrusive and therefore very appetizing in the sense that after a first taste it invites a second and so on.

Its aging, indicatively, is between 70 and 90 days, obviously the more time passes the more it will change leaving the sweetness to embrace a greater spiciness.

The crust, as with almost all blue cheeses, is not edible.

Ingredients: Pasteurized sheep MILK, lactic ferments, rennet, Volterra salt and penicillium roqueforti.
Size: Kg 1.5 approx.
Packaging: shape wrapped in aluminized paper
Shelf life of the packaged product:: 30 days

Product features:

Shape: cylindrical with irregular flat faces and slightly bowed sides, with a newly beveled edge;
External appearance: the crust is wrinkled, of medium consistency and is covered with a layer of natural mold of light gray color with the presence of lighter and darker patches. The holes drilled in the two faces are well highlighted to allow the entry of oxygen during the maturation phase;
Internal appearance: this cheese presents with an irregular blueing then with an inhomogeneous distribution of the molds. The paste in the center has a white color until it reaches the yellow-paglierino or ivory near the crust;
Smell: interesting to describe, you can feel clearly the lactic scent of butter, the vegetable like the dry porcine mushroom, but also very present the animal, characteristic smell of sheep and stable;
Taste: at first its characteristic salty flavor stands out, but which then attenuates leaving room for a sweetness, with its long persistence rediscovering most of the aromas also felt on the nose. Complex and very, very interesting cheese, also defined by meditation for the intensity and heterogeneity of flavors.

Availability: all year round, almost always available.

Gastronomic pairings: cheese for the whole meal, can be used at any time and in any way, raw or cooked, first courses, appetizers, second courses or served for dessert. One of the meditation cheeses par excellence. If anything, the recommendation that if it is used for entrance courses should be mitigated otherwise its strength could cover the flavors of the following courses.

Winel pairings: Tuscan sweet Vin santo, a malvasia, a late harvest, an aleatico from Elba or a passito from Pantelleria, always to stay in Italy.

AVERAGE NUTRITIONAL VALUES per 100 grams of product:

• Energy value KJ 1712 – 413 kcal
• Fats gr 34
• Of which saturated fatty acids gr 23
• Carbohydrates gr 2,5
• Of which sugars gr 0,5
• Protein gr 25
• Salt gr 2,5

ALLERGENS: MILK and MILK derivatives.