Make it from Scratch Ricotta & a Recipe!
Posted on | July 29, 2008 | 7 Comments
We get a gallon of raw milk each week from Windsor Dairy and this week, due to our camping trip, we had a little extra. So last night, I made a little over a half-gallon of milk into ricotta cheese. I keep trying to make mozzarella, and just wasn’t up to it because of the 10 pounds of green beans we needed to blanch & freeze from our co-op adventures last week. But ricotta is so easy!
- Pour a gallon of milk into a non-cast iron/non-aluminum pot, add 1 tsp salt (I have cheese salt, but I’ve read that any non-iodized salt–like pickling salt or sea salt–will work), and 1 tsp of citric acid. An interesting note for those of you who have been trying to make cheese like I have: I read that fresh farm milk needs more citric acid!! So if you’re using raw milk or other farm-fresh milk rather than something from the grocery store, you may want to double the citric acid.
- Heat the milk slowly to 195 degrees, stirring just often enough to prevent burning the milk. As it gets closer to 195, you will see the curd separate from the whey.
- At 195, remove from heat and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. At this point, you can do one of two things:
- For a very dry ricotta, spoon the curds off into a cheese cloth to drain.
- If you want more ricotta, or don’t mind it a bit more wet, you can spoon the curds off, drain, and then pour the rest through cheese cloth to get the last little bit of curd.
- That’s it! Put the ricotta into an airtight container and refrigerate if you can keep yourself from eating it with a spoon. Oh, and don’t forget to use the whey to feed your tomato plants or to make some yummy buttermilk pancakes (use whey instead of buttermilk!).
The following recipe, adapted slightly from the River Cafe‘s Green cookbook, is a bit time-consuming once you’ve podded & cooked the peas, made the ricotta, and heated the stock, but if you’re entertaining and looking for something delicious to serve that is both local and very home-made, this recipe is for you. I usually only make this once or twice a year, and it’s memorable every time.
Recipe: Pea, Ricotta & Lemon Zest Risotto
3lb fresh peas (1.5 pounds podded) (I’m going to try this with a mix of peas and broad beans, which will take a bit more cooking in the boiling water than what the peas will!)
250 g ricotta cheese, lightly beaten
finely grated rind of 2 lemons
6 c. chicken stock
3 cloves of garlic
200g unsalted butter
500g spring onions
400g arborio or carnaroli rice
2 T fresh basil
150ml white wine
50g Parmesan
salt & pepper to taste
- Heat the chicken stock to boiling and check for salt & pepper.
- Bring a saucepan of water to boil, add 2 t salt, the peas, and a clove of garlic. Simmer for 3-4 minutes & drain, reserving 150ml of water.
- Melt 150g of the butter in a large saucepan, and add onions to soften.
- Add the remaining garlic, then the rice, stirring to coat each grain of rice in the butter, and cook for 2-3 minutes.
- Add the wine and stir until the rice is almost dry, 1-2 minutes.
- Add a ladle of hot stock and stir, adding another when the rice has absorbed most of the liquid.
- Continue stirring and adding stock for 15-20 minutes or until the rice is not quite soft.
- Add half the peas and stir.
- Mash the other half with the garlic and liquid in a food processor and add to the risotto.
- Stir in the basil, 2 T of ricotta, and the remaining butter and cook until the basil is wilted and the butter melted.
- Serve garnished with the remaining ricotta, lemon zest, salt, pepper & Parmesan.
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About Terminal Verbosity
TV is the latest writing endeavor of Julie Artz, who has been blogging about just about anything that comes to her scattered mind since 2002.
Wife, mother, writer, gardener, flaming liberal, doesn't-know-when-to-keep-her-big-mouth-shut gabbergirl, obsessive reader, cook, appreciator of all fine food and bevies, Julie has finally reached Terminal Verbosity...
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July 29th, 2008 @ 9:20 am
Maybe I’d like ricotta if I made it from scratch…
Think you can make it with Royal Crest Dairy milk? Their claim is that they don’t heat their milk as hot as grocery store milk so it’s still somewhat live…
July 31st, 2008 @ 10:08 am
That sounds fabulous! Don’t know if we’re ready to try making ricotta yet, but maybe soon!
Hey, thanks to you, I finally stepped up and made some yogurt!
Well, OK, it was Eric. I was the one sterilizing jars and pulling out gear and fending off twins. He did the actual cooking parts. It’s a little thin, but good. We’ll clearly have to try again with some dry milk for thickening, unless you have other ideas of how to do it?
July 31st, 2008 @ 10:56 am
Nicole, you can totally user Royal Crest Dairy milk. I’ve used regular pasteurized milk to make it before, I just happen to be using raw milk at present
Hatchet, the yogurt starts thinner and then gets thicker as the culture develops. I’m noticing my raw milk yogurt is much thicker in texture, though, and I really, really love it (I need to do a raw milk post!!!). It’s also whole milk, which does make a difference.
If you’re not worried about fat (we never are), use whole milk and see if that thickens it. You can also cook the milk a bit longer to evaporate off more of the water.
I have read about using powdered milk to thicken, but I have never done it because I have a total aversion to powdered milk!
August 5th, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
I’ve never made cheese atall before so this easy ricotta looks like a good start. Thanks!
January 27th, 2009 @ 10:48 am
Your blog is really nice, Julie. I came here looking for a raw ricotta cheese recipe. Maybe i’m not educated enough on cheeses, but if you scald the milk, isn’t it techincally not raw anymore? and when you mention the raw milk yogurt, isn’t it technically not raw any more either when you cook it? A long time ago, i mad a raw yogurt, i.e. i never heated anything..just added the culture. It worked.
Also, are you aware that there is a powdered milk sold in health food stores? It is called non-instanst lowfat powdered milk, and supposedly dones’t go through all the horrible processing. Linda
January 27th, 2009 @ 12:07 pm
You’re right, the ricotta & yogurt are not raw if you cook them. I did a quick google and couldn’t find you a ricotta recipe using milk that did not require heating, but I’d guess you could do the yogurt raw if you let it warm to room temperature and added the culture–it would probably just take longer and I’d have to say the risk of spoilage would probably go up (it takes 8-12 hours to make yogurt with heating, so I’m guessing it would take close to twice that without heating).
My thought on all of this (keeping in mind that I’m not on a raw diet or anything) is that we use the raw milk to cut down on processing and I am satisfied that the minimal processing that happens in my kitchen does not fundamentally change the structure of the milk proteins the way commercial pasteurization and homogenization does. So I guess I can live with it
and wish you luck finding a truly raw recipe somewhere…
September 27th, 2009 @ 9:07 pm
[...] c milk (or, for even better results, whey leftover from making ricotta!) 1 egg 3 T butter, melted 1 t [...]