Steak & Stilton

• 4 oz/100g Stilton
• 1 oz/25g butter, softened
• 3 oz/75g walnut pieces
• 4 fillet steaks

Mash the cheese, then add the butter and walnuts and mix well. Put the steaks under a hot grill and cook for 2-10 minutes on each side, according to the thickness of the steaks and how well done you like them. Remove the steaks
from under the grill, sprinkle the cheese mixture evenly over them and press down with a palette knife. Grill for 1 minute or until the topping is melted and bubbling. Serve with new potatoes and salad.

If all the towns and cities in the country were asked to put together a plate of food they were famed for, could any of them match Melton Mowbray? Probably not, because with pork pies, Stilton cheese and Melton hunt cake the town boasts a mouth- watering collection of delicacies that have taken centuries to perfect.

Each year thousands of tourists visit the region’s most famous pork pie maker Dickinson and Morris to watch an authentic Melton pork pie being made at the Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe in Nottingham Street.

And many visitors stop off at the six dairies in the area which make Stilton.

This food industry which is built on top of high quality products is supported by the recent addition of two large factories making sandwiches and ready-made meals.

But the multi-million pound cheese and pie market that exists today is a far cry from how it started.