Komijnekaas / Leidse Kaas (Cumin Cheese)

Name: Komijnekaas / Leidse Kaas (Cumin Cheese)
Prep time: 90 min
Total time: 90 min
Yield: 12 servings
Cuisine: Dutch
Ingredients: 10 litres cows' milk; 2.5 ml mesophilic starter culture; 2.5 ml rennet; 20 g cumin seed; to cover saturated salt brine; as needed cheese wax or coating

Komijnekaas · Leidse Kaas

A firm, low-fat cows'-milk cheese studded with cumin seed — Leiden's spiced weigh-house cheese, pressed with the city's crossed-keys brand.

VIICheese & Dairy

Prep: 90 min
Cook: No cook
Serves: 12
Level: Advanced

Cut into a wheel of Leidse kaas and the smell of cumin rises at once — warm, faintly bitter, unmistakably spiced. This is the cheese of Leiden, a firm, pale, low-fat cows'-milk cheese shot through with cumin seed, and for centuries it carried the city's crossed-keys brand pressed into its rind, a guarantee stamped at the weigh-house. Among the great Dutch cheeses it is the characterful one, the wheel that tastes of the spice trade as much as of the meadow.

The weigh-house and the spice ships

Cumin cheese belongs to the Golden Age, when the VOC's ships were unloading spices onto Dutch quays by the ton and cooks folded them into everything, cheese included. Leiden made its name with a hard, low-fat cheese — the cream skimmed off for butter, the rest pressed dense and dry — and studded it with cumin, turning a lean, keeping cheese into something to relish. The city's cheesemakers guarded the recipe jealously; the crossed keys of Leiden's coat of arms, branded into each wheel at the official weigh-house, were both trademark and proof of the real thing. It is one of the oldest continuously made spiced cheeses in Europe.

Lean by design

What makes Leidse kaas distinctive on the palate is its leanness. Where Gouda is supple and buttery, this cheese is deliberately low in fat — the curd washed with hot water and pressed hard, driving out moisture and richness alike to leave a firm, close, slightly crumbly body. That dryness is not a fault but the point: it makes a cheese that keeps, that grates, and that carries the cumin cleanly without the fat blunting the spice.

A lean cheese and a fistful of cumin — Leiden turned thrift and the spice trade into something that lasted centuries.

Serve it in thin slices on dark bread, or let a well-aged wheel stand at the centre of a borrel board, where its firm bite and its warm, bittersweet cumin hold their own against any mustard.

From the kitchen

“Bruise the cumin lightly before folding it in — whole seeds stay sharp and scattered, while cracked ones perfume the entire wheel.”

Ingredients

Serves 12

The curd

10 litrescows' milk — part-skimmed, unhomogenised
2.5 mlmesophilic starter culture
2.5 mlrennet — diluted in cold water
20 gcumin seed — komijn, lightly bruised

Brine and finish

to coversaturated salt brine — 20% salt
as neededcheese wax or coating

Method

1
Ripen and set
Warm the milk to 30°C, stir in the starter and let it ripen for thirty minutes, then mix in the diluted rennet. Leave it undisturbed until it sets to a clean curd that breaks with a glassy edge — about 45 minutes.
2
Cut and scald
Cut the curd into pea-sized pieces and let them settle, then draw off some whey and replace it with hot water to raise the vat to 37°C. This washing firms the curd and gives Leidse kaas its dense, low-fat body.
3
Mix in the cumin
Drain most of the whey and work the bruised cumin seed evenly through the warm curd. Bruising the seed first releases its oils; folding it through now spreads the spice through every future slice.
4
Press hard
Pack the curd into a lined mould and press under increasing weight for several hours, redressing once, until the wheel is firm and closed. Leidse kaas is a hard, tightly-pressed cheese, not a supple Gouda.
5
Brine, then age
Float the wheel in saturated brine for about a day, turning once, then dry it and coat it. Age at 12–14°C for a minimum of six weeks, turning and wiping regularly, for a spiced, savoury cheese.

In the kitchen

The tools that make this recipe easier.

WorthwhileFish / filleting knife ↗
Thin flexible blade for herring, mackerel, and eel.
SpecialistVlaai / tart tin ↗
Wide shallow tin for Limburg vlaai and open fruit tarts.

On the cheese board

A Dutch board runs from young to old, with sweet and sharp foils.

Roggebrood — dark rye under the aged cheese
Mustard & syrup — mosterd for old, stroop for young
Stroopwafel — to close, with coffee

How a Dutch meal is built →

Questions from the kitchen

What is the difference between komijnekaas and Leidse kaas?+

Komijnekaas simply means cumin cheese, the general type. Leidse kaas is the protected, traditionally low-fat cumin cheese of the Leiden region, historically pressed with the city's crossed-keys mark.

Can I make it with a Gouda recipe?+

You can add cumin to a Gouda-style curd, but true Leidse kaas is lower in fat and pressed much harder, giving a firmer, drier cheese. Wash the curd well and press it firmly.

How long should I age it?+

Six weeks gives a young, mild cumin cheese; several months deepens it into something firm, dry and sharply savoury. The cumin grows more pronounced with age.