HOW TO make a cheese platter

IF YOU'RE HAVING people over for dinner, or even cocktails, and you don't want to spend hours slaving away in the kitchen making fancy finger foods, there is a solution "" cheese.

Nowadays, from Red Leicester to Camembert, from Gouda to Roquefort, all kinds of foreign cheeses are available (albeit most with a hefty price tag attached) in the Indian market.

You can't, though, just buy whatever your local store offers, slice them up and throw them on a tray and imagine that you're done. A well-balanced cheese tray should have cheeses (don't go nuts; select only up to five) that vary in flavour, texture, size and even colour.

Include some sharp flavours, for example a blue cheese such as Roquefort, and some mild ones (for example, Gouda); some hard ones (Cheddar) and some soft (Brie or Camembert); and mix up the shapes by cutting cubes, slices or just having large chunks of cheese that the guests can cut up for themselves.

(If you're doing this, though, remember to get different knives for each "" this will prevent the flavours from getting mixed up, and also the hard cheeses will obviously require a different knife from the soft, spreadable ones).

However, it's usually less messy if large groups of people have cubes to just pop into their mouths. For smaller groups of course, large wedges are fine.

It would also be nice (especially for those who used to colour-code their biology files in school), if each kind of cheese had little flag labels, telling the guests the name of each.

Although you can complete the platter with crackers (or bread for the softer cheeses), why not be a little more original and have some fun: most cheeses go well with dried or fresh fruit, nuts, olives, bread or even chutney (Cheddar is actually becoming quite popular with chutney in England).

These will not only tickle the palate and make the platter sweeter, but it will make the tray look more fresh and colourful as well.

Blue cheeses work surprisingly well with figs, but also pears, walnuts, and if you're drinking, red wine, champagne or port (port works especially well with Stilton, but unfortunately this kind of cheese is harder to find here in India).

Soft cheeses such as Brie or Camembert can go with fresh fruit such as apples, melons, grapes or plums, and also with red wine or champagne. Cold cuts such as ham or salami are also, of course, welcome additions to cheese trays.

The semi-hard Swiss cheese can go well with white wine, and sweeter fruits such as cherries and pumpernickel.

Since buying cheese is so expensive in India, it's always good to thoroughly check it before buying.

If it smells like ammonia, it'sprobably not worth it, but if there's fungus growing on it, resist the urge to sue the shopkeeper "" fungus on cheese does not mean that it's gone off, in fact it is an indication that the cheese is nicely aged "" you can simply cut it away and eat the rest.

Ask the shopkeeper about the different kinds of cheese available, chances are he will be very helpful, and might even offer you a taste!

It's a pity that there aren't more home-grown varieties, but nowadays in the stores you'll find all kinds of varieties from abroad.

The Taste in Delhi's Defence Colony market alone, for example, has three different kinds of blue cheese, Brie, Emantaller, four different kinds of Gouda and Italian cheeses such as Parmigiano Reggiano, Mozzarella and Grano.

And even Indian-made cheeses are slowly starting to steal into the market; for example, a company called Flanders makes surprisingly good Ricotta and sour cream. And while Amul is trying to introduce its own flavours of Gouda, these are clearly in the experimental stage and better avoided.

When you buy the cheese, refrigerate it at home to slow down the ageing process, but remember that it has to be served at room temperature, so leave it out for at least an hour before your guests arrive.