Experiments with Pimento Cheese Part 3

I picked up some of the “homestyle” pimento cheese made by Pawleys Island Specialty Foods, their “Palmetto cheese”. It’s good and it does in fact taste like homemade. It’s flavor profile has no sweet notes at all, but interestingly it has a pronounced hot note, and I liked that. I do like just a hint of sweetness, though. When I read the ingredients, I discovered that they use cream cheese in their recipe, so immediately I resolved that I would give that a try in my next batch, and wow, it makes a big difference, mostly in the consistency. It becomes a richer, thicker concoction. This has given me some ideas about where I am going next because I think I want to add some umami notes, and that means going for some good aged cheddar, or maybe even a tablespoon of soy sauce. Stay tuned for that.

Anyway, I can say with certainty that the addition of cream cheese is going to be a permanent addition to my recipe.

I’m still monkeying around with which hot sauce to use. In this batch I used Frank’s, and let me just be clear here: Frank’s officially sucks. I’m not even going to mess with it again. Frank’s can’t even deliver any sort of hot note at all because it is so mild. It’s a hot sauce that can’t even deliver on it’s basic function, which is being hot.

I reduced the cheese (cut the cheese?) by a pound to accomodate the cream cheese, so this was a smaller batch. I think the ratio of 1 lb. of cheese to one package of cream cheese is pretty much exactly right.

I lowered the sugar from 1 tablespoon to 1 teaspoon.

Here’s what I did:

• 1/2 lb. mild cheddar, grated by hand
• 1/2 lb. sharp cheddar, grated by hand
• 1 package cream cheese, softened to room temperature
• 3 huge overheaping tablespoons of Duke’s mayonnaise
• 1 large jar of Dromedary pimentos (couldn’t find Lindsay, which are better)
• 1 teaspoon of sugar
• 3 healthy splashes of Frank’s Red Hot (poor choice. Frank’s sucks.)

Mix well. Really stir the hell out of it, actually.

Chill overnight for maximum flavor melding.