Queso Flor de Guía (Gran Canaria Cheese)

Queso Flor de Guía is Gran Canaria's northern cheese, from the country around Santa María de Guía, Gáldar, and Moya: sheep milk rounded with cow milk and set with flor de cardo, wild cardoon flower, not animal rennet. The flower is not decoration. It gives the young wheel its creamy paste, its soft slump under the knife, and that clean bitter edge at the end. Serve it with miel de palma, palm honey, and you understand why the island keeps this one close.

The method that decides it is the set. Cardoon works slowly and gently, so you hold the milk at 30 to 32°C, stir the infusion in once, then leave it alone. Add more flower because you're impatient and the cheese turns harsh. Press it as if it were Manchego and you squeeze out the softness you came for. This is Gran Canaria, not La Mancha in a smaller hat.

If you're far from the island, no hace falta haber pisado España. Use pasteurized, non-UHT sheep milk and rich whole cow milk; use dried Cynara cardunculus flowers or a bottled thistle coagulant made for cheese. If all you can buy is animal rennet, make the cheese and enjoy it, but call it what it is: a pressed sheep-and-cow cheese, not Flor de Guía.

My margin note is short here: cuajo limpio, leche templada, clean coagulant, warm milk. Weigh the flower. Watch the thermometer. Give the curd time. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.