James Martin's Best-Ever Cheeseboard recipe

Wow your guests with the TV chef's ultimate cheeseboard recipe – guaranteed to satisfy all the cheese aficionados in your life.

cheese board from James Martin
Image credit: Quadrille/Dan Jones
By James Martin | Published - 11 Dec 2024
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A cheeseboard is the ultimate way to finish a meal in style or to showcase your favourite cheeses for a lighter bite.

If you can’t find those listed to serve, you can substitute them with similar cheeses, but try to keep the mixture of soft, hard and blue the same.

For a cold cheeseboard, check out James Martin's recommendations on the essential cheese for a cheeseboard.

Serves
8

Ingredients

  • 2 x 250g blocks of halloumi, sliced in half
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil

For the chutney

  • 100g caster sugar
  • 100g dark soft brown sugar
  • 1 onion, sliced
  • 100ml white wine vinegar
  • 100g sultanas
  • 250g fresh gooseberries

For the vine-leaf baked cheese

  • 6 fresh vine leaves
  • 200g Sharpham Savour, cut into chunks
  • 25ml Sauternes
  • 100ml double cream
  • 6 slices of speck

For the rosemary-baked cheese

  • 2 Tunworth
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • a few sprigs of rosemary

For the fried cheese

  • 200g Sharpham Elmhirst
  • 50g plain flour, seasoned
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 75g panko breadcrumbs

Suggestions to serve

  • Fresh vine leaves
  • Montagnolo Affine
  • Honey and clover Gouda
  • Doddington Hotspur
  • Admiral Collingwood figs, halved
  • Pickled onions
  • Crackers

Method

  1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan)/400°F/gas 6.
  2. To make the chutney, heat a non-stick pan over a medium heat and, when hot, add both sugars. Do not stir but carefully swirl in the pan until the sugars are brown and caramelised. This should take about 3–4 minutes. Once the sugars have caramelised, add the remaining ingredients and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
  3. First, to make the vine-leaf baked cheese, line a 20 x 15cm x 7cm deep ovenproof dish with the vine leaves. Pack in the cheese and pour over the wine and cream. Top with the ham and bake on the top shelf of the oven for 15 minutes.
  4. Next, for the rosemary-baked cheese, slice the top off the cheeses and pop them into a 10cm round ovenproof dish, 3cm deep. Crack over black pepper and stud with the rosemary. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for 10 minutes.
  5. Place the halloumi on a griddle pan, drizzle in the oil and cook on both sides for 1–2 minutes.
  6. Finally, for the fried cheese, heat a small pan of vegetable oil to 170°C (340°F). Dip the cheese in the flour, then the beaten egg and the panko breadcrumbs. Fry for about 1 minute until golden and crispy.
  7. To serve, cover a very large board in fresh vine leaves, then position the Montagnolo, Gouda, Hotspur and Admiral Collingwood on the board. Add the two baked cheeses, the fried cheese and halloumi all over the board. Garnish with halved figs, pickled onions, small pots of the chutney and some crackers.
James Martin cheese
Image credit: Quadrille Publishing/Dan Jones

Recipe from James Martin's Cheese: 100 Ultimate Recipes For Cheese Lovers, Quadrille Publishing (Hardback RRP £25) 

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TV chef james martin with cheese

Written by: James Martin

James Martin is a chef, TV presenter and host of James Martin’s Saturday Morning certainly knows his dairy. His latest book Cheese has 100 recipes which make the most of the UK’s favourite ingredient.

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