Browse Techniques

Niolu takes its name from the Niolo plateau — a high granite basin above 1000m in the central Corsican interior — and is produced from the raw milk of Ovis aries sheep that graze the alpine grasslands and maquis at altitude. It is a semi-soft washed-rind cheese: the curd is pressed lightly, drained, and then washed periodically during ageing with brine or occasionally a light eau-de-vie to encourage the orange-brown Brevibacterium linens rind that gives Niolu its pungent, animal character. At three to four months the paste is pale ivory, yielding, and paste-soft at the centre; the rind is sticky and deeply aromatic. Niolu is the most assertive of the Corsican cheeses — a strong-smelling, full-flavoured mountain cheese in the tradition of Munster or Époisses, though with a distinctly Corsican flavour profile: the maquis pasture contributes thyme, rosemary, and wild fennel notes that no mainland washed-rind cheese carries.

Soupe corse is the most immediate and accessible of the Corsican soups — a thick, bread-thickened, panzetta-based vegetable soup that is served in every village restaurant and home kitchen as the midday meal's first course from October through March. It differs from minestra in its bread-thickening method: thick slices of two-day-old pain de châtaigne or plain country bread are laid across the top of the soup in the final ten minutes of cooking and allowed to absorb the broth until they swell and dissolve into the soup body, producing a consistency closer to ribollita than to a clear broth. The base is panzetta — rendered in the pot before the vegetables are added — followed by the seasonal vegetables: potato, leek, cabbage (cavolo nero or Corsican green), dried haricot beans, carrot, celery, and fresh or dried tomato depending on the season. A generous pour of Corsican olive-oil is drizzled over each bowl at service — not stirred in — creating a slick of bright green-gold olive oil on the dark, thick soup surface.