Tesco Finest – Cream of the Crop

Regular readers will know that we have been putting a lot of the recently relaunched Tesco Finest range through its paces.  This week we have been looking at the cream of the crop in the shape of this Parmigiano Reggiano.  We always have some Parmigiano Reggiano in the fridge and we use it in many of the dishes that we cook, either as a finishing touch or as an integral part.  One of our regular meals is pasta with peas, pancetta and parmigiano reggiano.  In this dish, we don’t just put a little bit on top, it needs a very generous handful for every bowl as it is integral to the meal.  This seemed like the perfect food to cook to try the cheese out.  It was a joy to grate as it easily went through the grater and smelt fantastic.  Taste wise it measured up too .  I think it is worth spending a little more to get a top quality cheese that has been produced carefully and time has been taken.  This one gets to age for 30 months rather than the usual 12 months and you can taste the difference.

Our next product was the Tesco Finest Red Velvet Cake.  This is a fine-looking cake and it seemed like just the thing to take to a friend’s house as our contribution towards the meal.  It was greeted with much delight as you might expect – I’d certainly be chuffed if someone turned up with this as their pudding offering.  There were 6 of us for dinner and we only ate just over half of it with very generous portions, so it goes a long way. It’s a three-tiered red sponge cake with white cream cheese frosting.  It’s been hand decorated and finished with a red crumb.  It looked fantastic and tasted very fine too with moist, crumbly sponge and unctuous cream cheese.