Tuesday Tutorial- Homemade Ricotta Cheese

,I live in a very Italian neighbourhood, and my local market makes the most outrageously good ricotta cheese. The thickest, creamiest, most glorious ricotta I’ve ever had. It’s so good.

It’s also $12.00 for 500mL. The deliciously is directly linked to the price tag.

I have made a lot of ricottas in my life. Sometimes for restaurants, sometimes for home, and it’s always good. It is. But it’s never as good as the kind I can buy at the market. So I gave up for a while, I didn’t want to go through the trouble. I forked over the cash when I had a craving.

The trouble, is that to fully appreciate ricotta you have to eat it at room temperature, or slightly warmer. When it has just been made, slathered on good bread, and dipped in olive oil and sprinkled generously with maldon salt- it is the best and simplest snack ever. Put a salad beside it and you’ve got a downright brilliant lunch.

So I started experimenting with recipes, trying to make one as good as the Italian brand down the street, but that I could make at home and then eat while warm. Ricotta isn’t hard to make, you just bring some milk to a boil, add in some lemon, stir it until it occurs, and strain it. It’s a funny thing really, because traditionally ricotta is made by reboiling the whey of other cheeses, the whey of course being nearly completely fat free (the word ricotta literally means twice cooked), but ricotta is ever so much more delicious when you add in fat.

A lot of recipes call for 1 litre of milk and one cup of cream, but I add just a half cup more cream, and it makes a world of difference. Such a difference in fact, that I prefer it to the store bought kind down the street that costs twice as much. Small miracles my friends, small miracles.

Ricotta Cheese

1 litre Whole Milk (or homogenized)

1 1/2 cups Whipping Cream

Juice of 1 Lemon

1 1/2 tsp Salt

Line a large sieve with cheesecloth

Bring the milk and cream to a roaring boil.

Add in the lemon juice and stir, still over the heat, until thick curds have formed.

Pour the liquid into the prepared sieve, put the sieve over a bowl and allow to cool at room temperature for about an hour. You can make it a bit thicker by letting it sit longer if you’d like.

Remove the cheese from the cloth, and serve immediately, or store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.  

Poached Eggs Toast with Roasted Asparagus and Herbed Ricotta

Unless you’re a cook, I’m not sure if you will appreciate what I’m about to tell you. I’m not sure if you’ll understand that gravity of my next statement, unless you have spend countless years working every evening and weekend of my entire adult life, but I, Claire Lassam, don’t work on weekends any more.

To non cooks let me tell you this- for the first time in our 6 year relationship, my boyfriend and I have the same days off.

It is amazing.

I am not exaggerating when I tell you it’s a small miracle.

I am so very very happy about it.

Jordan on the other hand, is working all the blooming time these days, and about once a week he’s taking the ferry over to Victoria. So I thought I should meet him on the island and we should escape for a couple days. Actually I’m thinking we should do this all the time.

Oh man I love Vancouver Island. I really really really do.

The people are so nice, the weather is so much better, the scenery is totally comparable to where I currently live.

I just love it.

While we were away I made this little breakfast. Nothing fussy- just some toast and asparagus and ricotta with an egg on top, but it’s rich and comforting and so simple to make. And it was just about the perfect thing to eat while sipping hot tea, reading a book, and just generally being very calm, very relaxed, and very happy.

Poached Eggs with Roasted Asaparagus, Ricotta, and Sourdough Toast

4 Eggs

4 pieces Sourdough Bread

1 cup Ricotta

zest of 1 Lemon

2 tbsp Parsley, chopped finely

1 bunch Asparagus

Olive Oil

Salt and Pepper

Preheat oven to 400F

Break the bottoms of the asparagus- don’t cut them, they will break where the woody part ends.

On a lined baking tray spread out the asparagus, and mix with a good glug of olive oil, some and pepper.

Bake for about 15 minutes, or until the tips are crispy, but they aren’t soggy.

Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

Meanwhile mix the ricotta with the zest, parsley, salt and pepper.

Poach the eggs- break them into the large pot of water and turn the water down to a low boil. Cook for about 3 minutes for soft poached eggs.

Toast the bread.

Spread the ricotta mixture on the toast, put a handful of asparagus on top of that, and top each piece with an egg.

Sprinkle some more salt on top and enjoy!

Oat Soda Bread with Herbed Ricotta and Scrambled Eggs

We might be moving to the country. It’s not for sure yet, but there is a real chance we might pick ourselves out of the most expensive city to live in in North America and curl up on Vancouver Island. This appeals of me on many levels, mostly because when I think of living in the country and I don’t think of isolation or hard winters. Instead I day dream about long summer days in the garden. I fantasize about growing my own veggies and taking long walks in the fields at sunset. I get a glazed over look when I think about hanging my sheets out to dry or having a fire place or having enough room to build the bed I’ve always wanted to make. And when the logical man I would be moving with tells me I’m absolutely ridiculous and there are other things to consider when making a move like this I simply make this wonderful rustic bread, and strain some ricotta cheese and imagine that my eggs came from my yard, and I slip back into my imaginary world. Because fresh eggs and oat stuffed soda bread arecompletely at home there.

Oat Soda Bread with Herbed Ricotta and Soft Scrambled Eggs

(The bread recipe is adapted from 101cookbooks)

For the Bread

2 1/4 cups AP Flour

2 cups Rolled Oats

1 3/4 tsp Baking Soda

1 1/4 tsp Salt

1 3/4 cup Butter milk, more if needed

Herbed Ricotta

2/3 cup Ricotta cheese

1/4 cup chopped herbs, I used parsley, thyme, and rosemary, although tarragon or mint would be right at home there too)

Zest of 1 lemon

Salt and Pepper

1 tbsp Olive Oil

Soft Scrambled Eggs

4 Good Quality free range eggs, splurge and get the good ones if you can. It really does make a difference.

1 tbsp Butter

1 tbsp Heavy cream (Optional)

To start preheat the oven to 425F

In a food processor blitz 1 cup of the oats to a fine powder. If you don’t have a food processor don’t worry. Your bread will be delicious anyways, I promise.

Mix it in a bowl with everything else except 2 tbsp of the whole oats. Mix it all together until just combined.

Gently knead it a few times and then form it into a ball.

Put it on a baking tray lined with parchment and sprinkle the remaining oats on top. ( I ran out of oats so I missed this step!)

Cut a deep X on the top with a sharp knife and put it in the oven! Bake until it is cooked all the way through, about 45 minutes. It will have a thick crust and sound hollow when you knock on it.

Meanwhile mix together your herbed ricotta. Just mix it all up in a bowl and check the seasoning.

When the bread is out of the oven, let it cool for a few minutes. Slice it up and slather it with the ricotta.

Now, seconds before your ready to eat your ready to cook your eggs. Here is how I cook mine, and how I like my eggs best.

Crack your eggs into a bowl and whisk them very well. How fluffy they are is a direct correlation to much you beat them. Whisk in the cream if using.

Get a small frying pan hot.

Add in the butter and swirl it around for a second then, before it has fully melted add in the eggs. Now stir them slowly. I like my eggs with big pieces of scramble, and to do that you need to work the eggs slowly but throughally. When they are still a little shiny take them off the heat give them one last stir and quickly scrape them onto the ricotta slathered slices of bread.

And then eat it quickly and happily, and imagine your sitting on a farm in the country!

Leftovers

The inimitable MFK Fisher who revolutionized food writing from the 1930’s all the way to 1990’s wrote a wonderful essay about leftovers. Of course now that I am looking for it to quote it, it is lost somewhere in a book shelf and I can’t give you anything concrete but the basic idea of it was, that anyone can go to the store, buy ingredients, follow a good recipe and make a good meal. And this is true. But, she argues, it takes a good creative cook to look into her fridge and say, “Well, I’ve got a little bacon, some leftover squash, a tomato, and half a bottle of wine” and turn it into something delicious. And then, in her wonderful honest, not at all pretentious way, tells us that its a better way to cook, a more exciting way to cook, and a more satisfying way to cook.

Ever since reading that I think about it all the time. It’s so nice to make a meal out of things you thought you might throw away!

So yesterday when I looked in my fridge and saw half a bag of frozen blueberries, three quarters of a tub of ricotta that expires in 2 days, a lemon past it’s prime and 4 things of butter with a few tablespoons in each, I knew I could make it into something. In fact, I might just start keeping these things around to make this cake again but it was seriously good.

It is very very moist, not to sweet from the lemons, and the blueberries add a little something that makes it taste like summer.

So here it is, Blueberry Ricotta Bundt Cake.

3/4 cup Butter, Softened

1 1/2 cup Sugar

3 Eggs

1 cup Ricotta

1 1/2 cup AP Flour

1 tbsp  Baking Powder

1 tsp Baking Soda

Juice of 2 Lemons

Zest of 1 Lemon

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy

Add in ricotta and lemon zest.

Add in the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl in between each addition.

Add in the ricotta and the lemon zest.

Add in the lemon juice, and then the dry ingredients. Do not over mix.

Mix in the blueberries and spoon into the prepared pan.

Bake until an inserted skewer comes our with only a few moist crumbs, about 45 minutes.

Flip it out onto a a plate and let cool, slice it and eat it up!