Cheese-Making at Home... First up, Ricotta

   Now that I've successfully made my first cheese, I'm asking myself why it's taken me so long to give it a go!  Granted, I've started with ricotta, famously easy and with no requisite fancy ingredients, but still...  For me, my cheese-making journey called up images of Twain's A Tramp Abroad and his hilarious ascent of the Riffelberg - the initial level of intimidation I experienced far outweighed the actual task in the end.  This morning, I woke up and my mind was made up - I was going to make cheese, no matter how trying it might be.

   I headed to the store and picked up gallons of milk, some double cream, and some lemon and vinegar... one way or another, even if it required numerous attempts, I was going to produce cheese today.  I combined the approaches and recipes of a few books and online blogs I'd been reading and am proud to report that making cheese (at least fresh cheese) is not difficult at all and the result is absolutely delicious.

   Milk, from what I can tell, is at the heart of a great cheese - the recommendation is to try to get the freshest you can.  Down the road, I'd love to work with unpasteurized milk; but for now, the only milk I have easy access to is what's stocked at the grocery store (which is pasteurized).  A lot of recipes call for whole milk, but I read online that whole milk hasn't been consistent this year and a recommendation by a cheese-maker was to use semi-skimmed milk in combination with double-cream.  I took this recommendation and it worked really well!

   The ricotta I made is not the true traditional way of making Italian ricotta...  The true Italian way requires whey in combination with milk.  As this was my first cheese to make (and you get whey as a bi-product of cheese-making), I didn't have any whey on hand.  Even still, this ricotta was delicious and I will be making it again.

Ricotta (makes 1 cup or 250 grams)

Ingredients: 

2 cups (500 ml) semi-skimmed milk

1 cup (250 ml) double-cream

3 Tablespoons lemon juice

2 teaspoons sea salt

What else you need:

butter muslin

candy or digital thermometer

plastic slotted spoon

strainer or colander

In a saucepan, slowly heat the milk, cream and 1 teaspoon of salt, stirring occasionally until it gets to 190 F or 88 C.  This should take around 20 minutes.  I started on medium-to-low heat and slowly turned it up to get to the desired temperature.

Take the saucepan off the heat and add the lemon juice.  Give it a slow stir 1-2 times to make sure the lemon juice gets distributed throughout.  Let it stand for 5-10 minutes.  The citric acid in the lemon juice will instantly coagulate the milk - separating the curds from the whey.  

Line a nonreactive strainer (colander) with two sheets of muslin and place over a large nonreactive bowl.  Pour the curds and whey into the strainer.  Let stand for 5 minutes while the majority of the whey drains.  

Now add the last teaspoon of salt to the curds (at this time, you can apparently also add any herbs or spices as well if desired).  Carefully fold the salt through (with hands or plastic spoon) - trying not to break up the curds too much in the process.

Tie two corners of the muslin together and then the other two corners of the muslin together in order to make a draining sack.  Slip a wooden spoon under the knots and find a place to hang it where the whey can continue to drain (the sink is a good option).  You can put a bowl under it if you'd like to save the whey.

     

Drain for 1 hour if you like the ricotta to be very creamy.. up to 2 hours if you like it to be dryer in texture.

Once finished, you can either place in a bowl and serve immediately (room temperature and just made is when it's at its best) or place in a tupperware.  It should keep for 3 days - but likely will be eaten up well before that!

The ricotta from this recipe is creamy with a hint of lemon - I served on toasted baguette and it went down a treat.  Enjoy!!