Amul Cheese? Yes Please. Review on Amul Processed Cheddar Cheese

Cheese. It might seem alien to the Indian palate just a couple of decades ago, but it has embedded itself as a mainstream food item these days. Blame that upon fast foods like Pizzas, Burgers and Pastas, but Cheese is here to stay.

And having a bit of cheese at home doesn't hurt. Cheese is an exceptionally versatile food item and can be used to enhance a lot of fast foods or just plain comfort dishes. Some cheese in an omelette definitely adds a nice salty bite, while a slice of cheese grilled between two pieces of bread make for a yummy snack you have anytime.

Not to mention, Cheese is one of the most concentrated sources of calcium. A 100ml of milk will provide you around 100mg of calcium, but a 100gm of cheese will provide you around a 1000mg, or your daily recommended intake. So it keeps your teeth and bones strong as well.

As you would have surmised from the above sentences, I love cheese. There used to be only two brands which sold cheese earlier – Amul and Britannia. These days, you have far more, including Go, Milky Mist, and regional competition like Mother Dairy. I have experimented and tried their products, but I keep coming back to Amul cheese. Why? Let’s find out.

*Why I love Amul Cheese

The Taste*

Let’s be honest, this is the main reason to select one product over another. If you don’t like the way something tastes, you won’t buy it. Here are my thoughts on the tastes of the cheese brands I have tried:

1. Amul: The cheese cubes are salty with a hint of tang. The taste is pleasing to be because it isn’t bland. The cheese slices share a similar taste, and are not bland like the other slices. Regarding cheese spread, I find Amul to have the smoothest spread ability on toast and also the best flavours(Punchy Pepper and Spicy Garlic). I guess I like my cheeses with some zing.

2. Britannia: The cubes are the opposite of Amul. Rather bland and with a taste which seems a bit industrial and artificial. The cheese slices are equally bland and the taste disappears especially in a burger or sandwich. The taste after melting does improve, but it still trails Amul. A few months back I purchased a Britannia cheese spread and it was too hard, almost impossible to spread on toast. No minus marks for that.

3. GO: The best alternative to Amul. The cheese cubes are midway in taste between Britannia and Amul in terms of zing and tang. So some will find these to have the best flavours. The Slices are actually the best I have had. Melted, they complement sandwiches and burgers very well. Cold, not so much. I have not tried their cheese spreads.

4. Mother Dairy: The cheese cubes are a disaster. Someone really over salted them. They are pretty inedible after a couple of bites. The slices are similar in taste to the briannia, too bland for my liking. Their cheese spread is almost as good as Amuls in terms of taste and spreadability.

The Price

Now, saving a few rupees might not make much sense to some, but since I purchase a lot of cheese for the house, the savings really add up. Amul by far makes the most affordable cheese of the lot, with prices at least 10 – 20 percent cheaper than the others. Here is a list of prices of some products: Cheese Cubes 200gm Cheese Slices 200gm

Amul 97 108

Britannia 118 128

GO 110 120

Mother Dairy 110 125

I don’t like all Amul Cheeses

There is however one Amul product I really do not like, and that is their Mozzarella cheese. It seems to forget the Amul recipe for taste and is something unbelievably bland. Whether this is more authentic is questionable, but I would rather forgo some authenticity for some additional taste. GO makes the best Pizza mozzarella. They also make it available in grated form.

Verdict

I guess I am a cheese addict and I cannot get enough of it. But I am not a cheese snob who will pay ridiculous amounts of money for gourmet cheeses. For me, I need something which goes well on my pizza, pasta, toast and eggs and imparts a bit of zing to them. And Amul is the best in satisfying my taste buds. So to conclude I’ll just steal a popular catchphrase, ‘I’m loving it.’