Queso Majorero con Miel de Palma

Queso Majorero is Fuerteventura's, not a vague island cheese with a pretty name. It comes from Majorera goats, raised in that dry, windy land, and the cheese is firm, buttery, a little sharp with age, sometimes with a rind rubbed in pimentón or gofio, the toasted grain flour of the Canary Islands.

There is almost no cooking here, so the method that decides it is temperature. Serve it too cold and you taste salt and hardness. Let it sit until the chill leaves it, and the fat softens, the goat milk comes forward, and the rind tells you whether it was rubbed with smoky pimentón or quiet, nutty gofio. That is the dish. Don't fuss with it.

If you can't find true Queso Majorero where you are, use a firm Spanish goat cheese with some age, preferably Canarian if your shop carries it. A young fresh goat cheese is not the same; it will be softer, tangier, and less buttery. Palm honey, miel de palma from La Gomera, is the right sweetness beside it. If you must substitute, use a dark, not-too-floral honey and know it loses that Canary Island bitterness at the edge.

Cut the cheese in wedges, not thin little restaurant slivers. Give each piece a small gloss of olive oil and a spoon of miel de palma beside it, not poured over everything like syrup on a cake. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.