Make entertaining this festive season a breeze with a cheeseboard

From family picnics, parties to informal get-togethers, a cheese board filled with a selection of  cheeses and other nibbles is easy to put together. Adding fresh breads and crackers works so well with both sweet and savoury flavours and is great to feed a crowd. Enjoyed by young and old, it's the ideal way to entertain in summer and with an abundance of fruit and seasonal produce to fill the gaps, a cheese board doesn't have to cost the earth. Here’s how with some handy tips and suggestions.

TIPS FOR BUILDING A PERFECT CHEESE BOARD

• Variety works — Choose cheeses with different textures and taste profiles.
• Sweet, sour, bitter and salty — Match your cheeses to an array of different sweet and savoury ingredients. 
• Dazzle with colour — Choose fruits and vegetables of different colours, shapes and textures.
• Fill the space — se garnishes such as fresh herbs, berries, nuts, roasted chickpeas, and edible flowers so that the board is entirely covered with an abundance of good foods.
• Keep it cool — Remember that cheeses are at their best at room temperature.  So, keep your cheese board indoors until you are ready to serve. You can also assemble your cheese board on a marble slab to keep cheeses cool for longer outdoors.
• Smoked meats — If desired you can bulk it up with slices of smoked meats.

WHAT CHEESE WORKS WITH WHAT:

• Ricotta goes well with strawberries and other berries and soft fruit
• Brie and blueberries is a match made in heaven. The colours contrast so well with the blueberries (or other berries) cutting the richness of the Brie.
• Good old Gouda, or sweetmilk cheese as South Africans know it, comes alive with peach, nectarine and plum.
• Goat's cheese and fresh mango slices are a good match offering an appealing contrast in colour and texture.
• Watermelon and feta cheese — An old fav classic combo. An idea is to use a melon baller and shape into balls. Serve well chilled with squares of salty feta combined with the bite of fresh rocket. 
• Tomato and mozzarella are the much loved Italian original flavour.  Thread cocktail tomatoes onto wooden sticks with a fresh basil leaf in-between, drizzle with olive oil, season generously and serve.
• Apple and cheddar —  For the sharpness of the apple, I use Granny Smith apples cut into wedges and sprinkled lightly with lemon juice and a wedge of salty cheddar.
• Figs and blue cheese — Fresh figs are just coming into season and the combo with blue cheese is unforgettable. The sweet and sharpness of the two work so well together.

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