🧀 Queijo Serpa

Queijo Serpa is a Portuguese ripened cheese with a Protected Designation of Origin (PDO), registered in the EU in 1996. According to the single document, it is made from unadulterated raw sheep milk curdled with an infusion of cardoon (Cynara cardunculus L.) flowers, and the curds are drained slowly.

Maturing. The minimum maturing period is 30 days. A cheese matured for more than 180 days is called Queijo Serpa Velho (mature).

Look and texture. It is a short, flat, uniform cylinder with bulging sides and a slightly convex top, weighing from 200 g to 2.5 kg (from about 10 cm across and 3 cm high to 30 cm across and 8 cm high). The rind is thin, slightly rough, malleable and pale straw-yellow. The paste is closed and buttery, spreadable, with few or no eyes, yellowish white to straw-yellow, darkening in contact with air. Fat in dry matter is 45 % to 60 %.

Taste. The flavour is mild and clean, sometimes slightly pungent; the smell is mild to slightly strong. The Velho version has a hard to extra-hard rind, a semi-hard to hard, dry and slightly crumbly paste and an intense, clean, persistent flavour; it may be coated in colourless paraffin.

Production area. All steps (coagulation, moulding, maturing) take place in the defined area in southern Portugal, which includes the municipalities of Serpa, Beja, Mértola, Moura and others. According to the specification, the hot Mediterranean climate and the way the flocks are kept shape the microflora of the milk and give the cheese its character.

Queijo Serpa or Queijo de Nisa? Both are Portuguese PDO sheep cheeses from raw milk, curdled with cardoon, but Serpa is made in southern Portugal and can be eaten young: ripened at least 30 days, it is mild, clean and spreadable, while Nisa is semi-hard and ripens at least 45 days. After more than 180 days Serpa becomes Queijo Serpa Velho, hard and dry, with an intense flavour. Compared with Azeitão, Serpa is larger, up to 2.5 kg.

Look for “Queijo Serpa” with the EU PDO symbol (protected designation of origin); in Portuguese the abbreviation is DOP. Cheese matured more than 180 days is sold as “Queijo Serpa Velho”. The cheese is a short, flat cylinder of 200 g to 2.5 kg with a pale straw-yellow rind; the Velho may be coated in colourless paraffin. It is stocked at cheesemongers and supermarket cheese counters.

Queijo Serpa belongs to the sections Portuguese cheeses and Protected cheese names; its raw material is sheep milk.