ROKA Cheese Crispies (re-post)

Boxing Day! A time to recover from the excessive eating and drinking of Christmas Day, although in fact the Chef and I really don't eat or drink that much. Our house will not be filled with tonnes of leftover Christmas pudding and turkey; we haven't bought any in the first place so we don't need to worry how to be creative with leftovers. For others it is a time to rush out and do a massive post Christmas shop. I have never really understood that so I don't know what everyone is shopping for, and I do feel sorry for the shop workers who probably worked late on Christmas Eve and then have to work Boxing Day too.

I am lucky. I can slump around doing nothing much and wonder why whoever it was thought I might like whatever it was they gave me? Please note that I am writing before Christmas Day, so I haven't opened any of my presents yet. So maybe I am wondering how they knew I would be so pleased? Yes, socks can be a fabulous present if they are made of cashmere, or you know what? Why not just give me a crispy snack?

Anyway, I would like to re-post one of my favourite crispy snacks. This is, and remains, one of my all time favourites. And always will be. I wrote this post in 2013.

A very long time ago in the 1960s we had a yellow and blue tin with a picture of a cow on it. And the ROKA biscuits lived in that tin. They were expensive - possibly because they came in a tin - so we didn't have them very often, and we called them Cow Biscuits. Because of the picture on the tin.

This is a very old memory but a real one; not prompted by photographs of very small me and my smaller brother eating crisps.

I don't know what happened to our original tin or tins but I found this on eBay. Amazing! Just how I remember it. I still need to attack it with wire wool  to get rid of the rust but I've got to say I'm pretty thrilled with my purchase.

But look at this: ROKA Cheese Crispies are still made, and they haven't changed a bit. Oh, they make all sorts of fancy new versions but the basic Crispie is just the same as ever. Or is it a Crispy? Well, anyway, it's a small cheese biscuity thing. And they still make them!

 These are very delicate little biscuits, like cheese straws in a way, with a delicate cheesy taste. It's Gouda cheese from The Netherlands - which does have a delicate taste. Nothing shouty like mature cheddar. I guess they're made in the same way as puff pastry with lots and lots of very fine layers, and they break along the fault lines between the layers. You really need to take care when you bite because otherwise a chunk will drop off and then it's gone forever.

I have a very strict rule about not eating stuff that falls on the floor. I gather some people have a 5 second rule but for me if it falls on the floor I'm not eating it. And that would be a waste.

Cheese Crispies are so good but for some reason they are even better if you warm them slightly. I wouldn't put them in the oven, but maybe if you have an open fire put a little bowlful by the hearth and they'll taste even better after a couple of minutes. Yum.

So these Crispies come very very highly recommended although please don't expect a modern exciting taste. It's not about excitement. It's not about a big spicy taste. It's about a gentle grown-up cheesy biscuit that tastes very good with a glass of sherry or champagne.

They probably taste pretty good with anything although maybe not a cup of coffee.

You can still get ROKA Cheese Crispies in a tin if you look hard enough. They usually come in a cardboard box, with the crispies in an airtight silver baggie. But as I write Lakeland are selling tins at £6.99 which is quite a lot for two packets of cheesy biscuits. But I guess if I got one of these tins now I wouldn't have to buy one off eBay in my old age. Something to consider perhaps. Maybe I could even sell it on eBay in my old age?

Brilliant.

ROKA Cheese Sticks Gouda Cheese

This is another cheese stick from those lovely people at ROKA in the Netherlands.

Very nice lightly cheesy cheese straw sticks  with a sort of streusel topping probably  made of Gouda cheese. The crunch is light, not too crunchy, the taste is light, not too cheesy and sort of without concentrating I tried one with a cheese and herb dip and.... it works amazingly well.

Less golden than shown on the packaging but very nice.

ROKA Gouda Cheese Bites

OK. I read the packaging really carefully and ROKA suggest you heat these cheese bites in the oven for 2½ minutes before starting to eat (AKA start crunching). So I'll try that now and be back in a bit.

Well that was quite some wait. Even so short a cooking time requires the oven to heat for what feels like an age. But I'm really not convinced that heating this snack for such a limited time (although would you want to do that for much longer?) makes a huge amount of difference to how you feel about this cheesy snack.

Tastily cheesy but quite a hard crunch. For some reason I really expected these Cheese Bites to have a soft and squishy inside: crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside. But no. They are just crunchy. Even after heating (which you kind of feel ought to make a difference.) And I found that rather disappointing.

It seems odd to feel cheated after trying a cheesy snack. It's just that for whatever reason you kind of expect (make that I kind of expected...) a soft centre - which you don't get. Probably because this crispy snack was never intended to have a soft centre. Expectations eh? Not always a good thing.

But again thank you very much ROKA for the fabulous food parcel they sent me from the Netherlands.

ROKA Cheese Sticks Poppy & Sesame Seeds

This is another cheesy snack sent to me by those lovely people at ROKA in the Netherlands.

Perhaps not an ideal crispy snack for 9 o'clock on a Thursday morning, but nonetheless several of the reluctant taste testers tucked in quite quickly and the whole packet was finished by lunchtime.

We liked the lovely light texture of the cheese sticks. We like the choice of poppy seed and sesame seed, and the quite distinct flavours. I liked the way the seeds didn't drop off all over the place. We liked them a lot (apart from the extremely picky taste tester who said she detected an aftertaste of washing up liquid - but everyone else was astonished at this weird opinion and didn't pay any attention).

And the senior taste tester and I decided that we would really like to try them again with a glass of fine dry sherry. Or similar.

I must say I'm not sure I would have bought them on purpose as I'm not usually mad for sesame seeds. That's probably why we haven't tried this box of Cheese Sticks sooner. But I would have been quite wrong (as so often) because the sesame seeds seemed to work even better than the poppy seeds with the deliciously mild Gouda cheese sticks.

Pretty good. Yes, please; I'll have another. What do you mean we ate them all?

ROKA Cracker Snack

Cracker Snacks & Dip

Another little box of crispy snacks sent to me by the lovely people at ROKA in the Netherlands.

Oh dear. I feel really mean but we weren't awfully impressed.

Cracker Snacks are small square biscuits or crackers made with linseed, sesame seed, sunflower seed and oat flakes. According to the packaging there is 18% Gouda cheese in the mix too. You can see the cheese on the top, but you don't get a lot of cheesy taste - except there is a pretty good cheesy aftertaste.

These little crackers are not at all nasty. Let's get that absolutely straight. But they don't seem terribly exciting either. I must admit that I didn't try them in all the ways suggested by the packaging: to accompany my soup! (no), with pre-dinner drinks! (no), for decorating with my favourite toppings (no), as a tasty bite! (yes), for barbeques & picnics (no), and for snacking and dipping (yes - yes, I tried that). Yes, we tried snacking with a dip.

And what I got, what the reluctant taste testers at work got, was an overwhelming sensation of healthiness. These crispy crackers have quite a hard crunch and they do taste awfully healthy. I expect it's all the seeds.

I read, for example, that linseeds may help with heart disease, arthritis, PMS, and feeling calmer in times of stress. And if I'm not mistaken I remember a long ago plot from The Archers (for non UK readers it's a very long-running BBC Radio 4 soap: an everyday story of farming folk) where a character suffering terrible menopausal symptoms baked herself a cake full of linseeds and other healthy stuff, but half of the cake was eaten (ha ha ha!) by a greedy and dreadful old man called Joe Grundy (ho ho ho!) and wasn't he upset when he discovered what he'd eaten?

Well, well, perhaps these would be more fun if I'd spread hummus on them, or slices of cheese or I don't know what. I did provide a dip for the reluctant taste testers but although it helped, we were still left with that sensation of healthiness. And I'm sorry to say they are not (as advertised on the packet) irresistible.

ROKA Cheese Crispies Jalapeño Peppers

Another triumph from the lovely people at ROKA in the Netherlands. Yet another astonishingly tasty yet delicate (and somehow awfully posh) crispy snack to marvel at and try terribly hard not too eat too many of.

Oh dear how easy it is to fail if you don't want to eat too many ROKA cheese crispies!

Just lovely. A lovely cheesy snack with a hot jalapeño bite.

The original cheese crispies are on my list of all time favourite crispy snacks which tells you how highly I think of them. I had not tried these before: they were part of the wonderful food parcel sent me by ROKA (who seem to like me because I keep telling the world how fabulous their products are). I saved the jalapeño peppers flavour for a special occasion and brought them out this week when we had a tea party for our lovely reluctant taste tester who is taking maternity leave.

OK, so they had to compete with a Colin the Caterpillar cake from Marks & Spencer (although I gather this has recently been made redundant by the new Piñata cake from Asda), and a number of other goodies, but everyone knows how good ROKA cheese crispies are. Plus, I brought half the packet home for the Chef and me. Because it would be a terrible shame to put them all out for the taste testers who were really concentrating on the present-opening activities of the maternity leaver.

We are trying not to eat these too quickly so just going downstairs now for a small snack. Always supposing the Chef hasn't eaten them all when I wasn't looking... Yum!

ROKA Cheese Puffs Gouda Cheese Olive

Here is definite proof that the brain doesn't know what it likes as well as the taste buds do.

I looked at these Cheese Puffs from the lovely people at ROKA in the Netherlands and thought well, I don't like olives, so I'm going to take these in for the reluctant taste testers at work to try.

I've eaten olives in Cyprus and Italy where they grow olives. I think I've probably eaten them in Sydney which has a mediterranean climate (warm wet westerly winds in winter they taught us at school). But I can never seem to fancy olives in the UK. The weather isn't right. Not even in a really hot summer. Or something. A friend tells me you sometimes have to practise liking certain sorts of foods and I think she's probably right. I guess for me that includes olives... and I haven't practised enough.

So I took these Cheese Puffs to work and what a mistake that was! Everybody just loved them. And so did I. But I only got one. And one to take home for the Chef to try. And he liked them too.

Remember, ROKA Cheese Puffs come in a plastic tray in a silver baggie inside a cardboard box so you don't get very many Puffs in each box. Which I can understand because they are fragile creations and need careful packaging so they don't fall apart.

I'm not convinced this crispy crunchy snack actually tastes of olives. But I can exclusively report that the taste is simply superb. There is certainly lots of yummy herbiness going on and I was too busy enjoying that to pause to consider the olives (or lack of the same).

We didn't heat them in the oven because we don't have an oven at the office - and I'm not sure putting them in the microwave would be a help. But if heating these Cheesy Puffs would make them better.... wow!

Yes, ROKA has done it again; another delicious crispy snack. Delicious delicious delicious.

ROKA Cheese Puffs Gouda Cheese Onion & Garlic

Posh Cheese Puffs from the lovely people at ROKA in The Netherlands.

These Cheese Puffs are a sort of cheese straw with lots of layers of fine pastry. Not that I ever managed to make a cheese straw this good. They come in a plastic tray in a silver baggie in a cardboard box. When I opened the baggie there was an amazing aroma of onion and garlic. Just delicious. The cheese is more subtle but the whole effect is fabulous.

The plastic tray protects the puffs which are quite fragile, being made of lots of layers of fine pastry, and I have to say they all survived intact despite a journey through the post.

But you don't get all that many in a packet which is a shame.

You can see from the photograph that each Puff is perforated in the middle "twin bites: breakable in the middle for double fun" it says on the packet. If you break them in the middle you can pop each half into your mouth without biting into the fragile pastry, thus avoiding pastry crumbs all down the front of your smart frock. Or, in my case (quite often), all down my cleavage (if you haven't got a cleavage you won't know how tickly that can be). So a clever design feature.

I opened the packet and put the Puffs in a bowl to take a photograph and the Chef and I tried one each. And we thought, well, these are quite nice and the taste is great, but they are a little bit dry. Then the Chef suggested that perhaps a glass of champagne would be the ideal accompaniment. Which is odd because he hadn't seen the packaging which shows a party and a man about to pour from a bottle of champagne. It also shows a very lavish cake but I guess that's another story.

I covered the bowl carefully and determined to try again. When I got home from work next day I found the Chef had accidentally eaten nearly all the Cheese Puffs and had decided they were rather better he had originally thought. He's picky and would not have grazed like this on a sub-standard snack. And I think he's right. Even without that glass of champagne.

I have to admit that we failed to read the TIP! on the side of the packet to stick the Cheese Puffs in the oven at 200°C or 400℉ for 2½ minutes. Oh dear; 2½ minutes isn't long to wait. That'll teach me to read the packaging first and I'll definitely turn the oven on next time.

I haven't tried them with a glass of champagne either. There is a bottle in the fridge but I have a friend coming to stay in a week and that's waiting for her to arrive. So I guess we have to try another packet together. And no doubt the Chef would complain if we left him out.

Definitely a crispy snack to try again.

ROKA Cheese Crispies Gouda Cheese with Pesto

Last year I wrote about the fantastic ROKA Cheese Crispies. Time now for a quick note on the very fabulous (but perhaps not quite so fantastic as the original) pesto version. The tin I bought came with one baggie of original flavour Crispies, and one baggie of pesto.

I got a tin for the Chef and me for Christmas last year, and several more for Christmas presents, and we ate the original flavour Crispies at once. But we saved the modern pesto version for later... and now we've finished the Pesto Crispies too.

It was always going to be hard for these pesto crispy crunchy biscuity things to compete with one of my very favourite snacks but I have to say these don't do a bad job. Which is pretty amazing as I recently decided I don't actually like pesto.

Light as a feather with a soft crunch that feels just right. Slightly oily but in a good way (I can't explain). Cheesy and pesto-y. Delicious. They fall apart really easily but it doesn't matter. It's fun chasing the crumbs.

I don't know what it is: they're just so good. Highly recommended. 10/10. although you should know that the original flavour rates 11 at least. Possibly more...

Update: the lovely people at ROKA sent me a food parcel because they read how much I love their Cheese Crispies. How generous is that? And a packet of Cheese Crispies with Pesto was included.

As the Chef and I had already tried some of these I ripped open this packet for the reluctant taste testers at work. So not long past 9 o'clock yesterday morning instead of having breakfast we were all snacking on these superb cheesy snacks. And everyone agreed they are simply delicious. The pesto flavour, it was agreed, seems to be more of a hint of pesto than a great big wallop of flavour, but this was felt to be a good thing. And then everyone greedily had another, and possibly another.  There weren't many crumbs but they were very soon hoovered up.

So a great big thank you to ROKA. And more exciting reviews to come because my food parcel was huge! And many thanks also to the Netherlands postal service who delivered my parcel amazingly quickly. Who knew I was an internationally renowned food writer eh?

ROKA Cheese Crispies

A very long time ago in the 1960s we had a yellow and blue tin with a picture of a cow on it. And the Roka biscuits lived in that tin. They were expensive - possibly because they came in a tin - so we didn't have them very often, and we called them Cow Biscuits. Because of the picture on the tin.

This is a very old memory but a real one; not prompted by photographs of very small me and my smaller brother eating crisps.

I don't know what happened to our original tin or tins but I found this on eBay. Amazing! Just how I remember it. I still need to attack it with wire wool  to get rid of the rust but I've got to say I'm pretty thrilled with my purchase.

But look at this: Roka Cheese Crispies are still made, and they haven't changed a bit. Oh, they make all sorts of fancy new versions but the basic Crispie is just the same as ever. Or is it a Crispy? Well, anyway, it's a small cheese biscuity thing. And they still make them!

 These are very delicate little biscuits, like cheese straws in a way, with a delicate cheesy taste. It's gouda cheese from Holland - which does have a delicate taste. Nothing shouty like mature cheddar. I guess they're made in the same way as puff pastry with lots and lots of very fine layers, and they break along the fault lines between the layers. You really need to take care when you bite because otherwise a chunk will drop off and then it's gone forever.

I have a very strict rule about not eating stuff that falls on the floor. I gather some people have a 5 second rule but for me if it falls on the floor I'm not eating it. And that would be a waste.

Cheese Crispies are so good but for some reason they are even better if you warm them slightly. I wouldn't put them in the oven, but maybe if you have an open fire put a little bowlful by the hearth and they'll taste even better after a couple of minutes. Yum.

So these Crispies come very very highly recommended although please don't expect a modern exciting taste. It's not about excitement. It's not about a big spicy taste. It's about a gentle grown-up cheesy biscuit that tastes very good with a glass of sherry or champagne.

They probably taste pretty good with anything although maybe not a cup of coffee.

You can still get Roka Cheese Crispies in a tin if you look hard enough. They usually come in a cardboard box, with the crispies in an airtight silver baggie. But as I write Lakeland are selling tins at £6.99 which is quite a lot for two packets of cheesy biscuits. But I guess if I got one of these tins now I wouldn't have to buy one off eBay in my old age. Something to consider perhaps. Maybe I could even sell it on eBay in my old age?

Brilliant.