Reheating Curds & Whey

My philosophy of the pantry could be thought of as Occam’s Chefs Knife, if anything can be made quicker, better and cheaper than can be purchased – pie crust, stock/sauces, salad dressings - then do it yourself. At the other end of the spectrum beer and bread, along with cheese top the list of things that are bountiful, affordable and professionally made.

Well not every type of cheese, last time I purchased ricotta, and before that when I bought quark, I wondered how a simple cheese, only a step removed from little Miss Muffet’s curds & whey ends up costing between $8-9 a pound (Aged cheddar can be had for 5.99). So I vowed never again…and this time I actually backed it up, I borrowed a book, bought a gallon of milk, some tartaric acid and went to work.

Ricotta is a fresh cheese; there is no rennet involved, no cave aging, nor are there monks, neo-hippies or back-to-earthers who make mind-blowingly good cheeses in some cloistered location/compound. This style of product turns up in countless cultures be it feta, queso fresco, panir, potted cheese, the aforementioned quark – the milk of goat, sheep, buffalo or cow is turned into a mild, soft cheese and ricotta’s instance, an austere product made from leftovers.

The word ricotta translates literally as ‘recooked’. The ricotta itself isn’t heated or cooked – the name refers to heating the whey (leftover from the cheese making process) a second time with a mild acidic solution until the proteins bind and coagulate. In Italy there are different kinds of ricotta depending on the mother whey: Parm, Pecorino and Romano cheeses all have ricotta spawn. Because of its incredibly short shelf life these specific ricottas (ricotti?) are not best candidates for export. Outside of the Italy, ricotta isn’t that specific of a product, it is a generic term for the style of fresh cheese used in ravioli filling or on the sweet side – stuffed in to cannoli.

The Saucykitchen wanted to produce a summer lasagna without blowing the budget on cheese. Chard, spinach, tomatoes, a little cream and some truly fresh ricotta using the recipe from Ricki Carroll’s Home Cheese Making accomplished the feat. Truth be told, I am way too easily self-satisfied but this ricotta turned out so well, I feel on this occasion I am allowed to be impressed with my own efforts. So much so as soon as I finished, I was thinking of ways to improve the results. Fresher milk to start – possibly unpasteurized, definitely unhomogenized – maybe I could even scoop the cream out and make my own mascarpone. Or I should try kneading my own mozzarella.

Occam's chef knife might be slicing through ricotta for the considerable future.