Rich with Ricotta

Thanks to  Marcie's seemingly-endless supply of milk, we get to enjoy such treats as homemade ice milk (a must for this weather) and fresh cheeses. Thanks to Ricki Carroll's Home Cheese Making: Recipes for 75 Delicious Cheeses, making the cheeses has become pretty routine. For instance, yesterday evening we made a fresh batch of ricotta. Being daring, I increased the recipe by 50% to make space in the fridge, feeling a niggling concern at the back of my mind that I may have read warnings against fiddling with cheese recipes--but since the experiment worked, I'm guessing the warnings applied to making milk soaps, not cheeses.

We love the fresh ricotta for its simplicity, taste, and versatility. When no one is watching, I'll mix some into cannoli filling and fill a sugar cone for some minutes of sweet bliss. (Eventually I'll get some cannoli tubes and make my own, but being the lazy sort--and having ice cream cones on hand--this works for me just now.) Often we'll pile the whole batch into garden-veggie lasagna and eat like royalty for much of a week. Ricotta goes nicely into sandwiches, too, especially alongside thick, juicy tomato slices.

Assembling the ingredients for ricotta is a snap. The necessary materials are simply whole milk, vinegar, butter, and baking soda. I usually start with a gallon of Marcie's milk in a double boiler (generally a stainless bucket in a stainless pot or--as shown here--a larger milk bucket), set the milk thermometer where I can easily read it, then begin the process of heating the milk to 195 degrees Fahrenheit. For a long time I would just periodically dip in the thermometer to test the temperature, until one day it dawned on me that the handy clip on the thermometer was put there for a reason. (I've never been the brightest bulb...) Now the heating process is less stressful, I just pass by now and again to check the reading for progress.

Once the milk is heated, I slowly add the vinegar, stirring it in with an up-and-down motion. Watching the milk separate into curds and whey is somehow magical. All it takes is hot milk and a bit of acidic liquid (in this case, apple cider vinegar). The separation can begin gradually or it can happen pretty quickly, depending upon the temperature of the milk--I think. Once the whey appears to be watery-thin, with little evidence of milk solids, it's time to ladle the curds into a strainer and let them drain for a minute. The first time I did this, I let them drain longer than the prescribed minute. I discovered that that method produces a very dry ricotta, and followed Carroll's directions better the next time.

Being an impatient sort, I don't always follow the directions as closely as I might. This last time I used a double layer of butter muslin to line the colander through which the whey was to drain, then--because I had increased the recipe--poured the hot curds and whey into the colander rather than slowly spooning them in. This method emptied the first pot quickly; however, the double layer of cloth slowed the draining process. (The quantity of liquid may have factored in, too.) So I let it all drain a bit longer. Luckily the result was just right for our purposes.

After dumping the strained curds into a bowl, I added the melted butter and baking soda, stirred briefly, and could not resist taking a taste. Next time I'll wait until the mixture has had a bit more time to complete its change from separate ingredients to cheese because as divinely tasty as this first bite had been, I could still detect the baking soda's fizzy workings in progress.

Finally, I transfer the mixture to a smaller bowl, cover it, and set it aside to cool a bit before refrigerating. By morning we have a finished cheese that's perfect on toast or with eggs (farm fresh, of course). And, once cooled, the whey becomes a treat for greedy dogs, cats, and chickens--and there is always plenty to go around.

Thanks to Miss Marcie, we are rich with ricotta on this farm.