🧀 Piacentinu Ennese

Piacentinu Ennese is an Italian pressed cheese with a protected designation of origin (PDO), made from raw whole sheep's milk with saffron and whole black peppercorns. It belongs to the hard cheeses and to the Italian cheeses section.

The milk production, cheesemaking and maturing area is the whole province of Enna in Sicily, where native sheep graze natural or cultivated pasture and saffron has grown for centuries. Sheep farming, cheesemaking and maturing must all take place there.

The milk comes from native Sicilian Comisana, Pinzirita and Valle del Belice sheep and their crosses, which are put out to pasture for most of the year. Lamb or kid rennet paste and saffron must come from the production area; the peppercorns are washed in hot water (above 80 °C) for a few seconds before being added. The cheese is shaped in reed baskets and matures for at least 60 days in a cool place with small openings or in stores at 8–10 °C and 70–80 % humidity.

A wheel is cylindrical, 11–15 cm high and 18–20 cm across the faces, weighing 3.5–4.5 kg. The rind, at most 5 mm thick, is yellow from saffron and shows basket marks; the paste is uniformly yellow, smooth and not grainy, and may have very small eyes. Fat is at least 40 % of dry matter. The aroma is delicate with a slight hint of saffron, the saltiness hardly noticeable; the taste is mildly pungent in the first months and becomes more so with age.

The cheese may be sold whole or in portions cut from certified cheeses. A wheel is identified by a casein nameplate with the name and a label showing the letters DOP, and portions carry a label with a code identifying the cheese.