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Ricotta is for me strongly associated with Easter and Spring cooking in general: it plays a crucial roles in beloved seasonal dishes, from Ligurian Torta Pasqualina (when the original, more appropriate Ligurian cheese prescinseua cannot be found outside Liguria – that is always!), to Neapolitan ricotta and wheat tart, called pastiera, spinach or nettle ravioli and the endless sweet or savoury cakes and pies that can be found all over Italy at this time of the year, pizza rustica, fiadone abruzzese, pizza di ricotta.
Artisanal ricotta is one of the ingredients I miss most from Italy. I have never tasted here in the UK a ricotta, either made here or imported, that is as good as the one I can have almost anywhere in Italy. It makes sense: fresh ricotta (that has not undergone any pasteurization) is a fragile beauty and it does not travel well. As a consequence what we get here is generally the long-life stuff; local cheesemakers simply do not have the knowledge or the inclination to learn.
So, for me, homemade ricotta it has to be. Well… almost! Ricotta is made with super fresh whey (a lot of it), an ingredient most of us do not have handy. This is a ricotta-style fresh cheese, made with milk and cream.
I have tried numerous methods and recipes over the years (see notes) but this is the only one that has given me results pretty close to real Italian ricotta, come quella che si mangia in Italia, like the one you can eat in Italy. It is based on the recipe given by Rosetta Costantino in her beautiful books: My Calabria and Southern Italian desserts. However, I had to depart from her and find my own ways because the method described by Mrs Costantino did not give me consistent results (still I would urge you to check her out: she is excellent).
This is not an exact science and you will have to play around a little bit perhaps in the first attempts, but the results will always be very good and you will improve your ricotta making in very little time, as I did.
Home made fresh cheese, ricotta-style
yields between 1 kg and 800 g of ricotta
4.563 ml whole milk
250 ml double cream
2 tsp + ¼ tsp fine sea salt
1.5 teaspoon vegetarian rennet dissolved in 50 ml room-temperature tap water. Take the rennet out of the fridge just before mixing it with the milk (see below).
Get a large, stainless steel saucepan and rinse it out. Filming the bottom of the pan with water will reduce the risk of scorching.
Add the milk and the cream, give them a good stir and heat them up, on a medium-low flame, stirring.
If any skin forms on top, you can remove it, as Costantino recommends, or leave it, as I do, stirring it back into the milk.
Bring the milk to 93° C/200° F. Add the salt and stir well to dissolve it.
Transfer the milk to a different pot, filtering it through a fine mash colander. To hasten further the cooling down, I generally then place the pot into the sink, full with cold water, which I change a couple of times. Stir the milk often.
When the temperature has dropped to 35° C/95° F, it is time to add the rennet, which you have just taken out of the fridge and mixed with the water.
Stir well, cover with a cloth, place the lid on and leave it undisturbed for 30 minutes.
When you come back, the milk will have thickened considerably. Break up the curds, giving the lot a good stir with a whisk – the mass of curds will start separating into small nodules.
Heat up the milk on a low flame, stirring it ever so gently with a spider, which you must plunge right to the bottom of the pan, at the edge, pushing the tiny curds towards the centre.
Soon you should be able to start collecting the “ricotta” curds with a spider: I place them in plastic ricotta baskets but you can also use a colander lined with a cheese-cloth or with some muslin.
I switch off the heat only when there are just a few curds left in the pot.
Tip the lot into a lined colander. These last curds will be a little firmer than the first ones, but still very good.
You can keep the whey, to make soda bread, cakes, mashed potatoes… I have never managed to make proper ricotta from this whey (even adding extra milk): I seem to remember that it has something to do with the type of rennet used. If you know about this, please enlighten me.
How long you drain the ricotta is really up to you. This fresh cheese is perhaps at its best (like real ricotta) when barely warm. It keeps in the fridge for up to one week: smell it and taste if in doubt.
Notes:
Is this fresh cheese identical to real Italian artisanal ricotta? No, but this rennet-based method (more than any other method I’ve tried) does deliver a fresh cheese that is very close to the real McCoy. Artisanal Italian ricotta is light, substantial, creamy, clean-tasting at the same time. It can be sliced but it collapses into a creamy mass as soon as you press it. This ricotta-style is a little firmer and heavier in taste and texture. However, it is also infinitely better than anything I have bought in shops and Italian delis here in the UK. It might take a few attempts to get to this creamy result but it’s worth persevering.
Quantities: A little less or more milk does not make much difference. I found though this recipe does not work as well if it is scaled down. This ricotta lasts for up to a week in the fridge, so I found it useful to make it in bulk (bear in mind that it is not unusual for Italian recipes to call for 500 g -1 kg of ricotta).
The quality of milk and cream: undoubtedly, I get the best results when I use cream and milk that taste wonderful in their raw state. It is not as obvious as it might sound: often even organic milk and cream sold here does not taste much. I generally use luscious and creamy Jersey cows’ milk and raw double cream (48% fat content)
Full fat or not? I think full fat gives the best results: a creamy and luscious ricotta-style cheese. Whenever I used semi-skimmed milk (and cream), my ricotta had a notable dry mouth feel, no good.
Salt: do not skip it; it brings out the flavour.
Rennet: I use liquid vegetarian rennet, this one. It is NOT the same as vegetarian essence of rennet, also known as “junket rennet”: I did try it and the results are far less consistent. Rennet must be kept in the fridge once opened and it must be used well within the sell by date: in fact, in my experience, I have noticed that it tends to lose potency as the sell by date approaches. Rosetta Costantino uses both animal and vegetarian rennet in her recipe. It should be diluted with some room-temperature tap water just before incorporating it into the milk. I have seen on-line cheese-making forums suggesting the use of distilled water: I never had problems using normal tap water. I did a cheese-making class a few months ago and tap water was what they used at the dairy.
Temperatures: pretty important. According to Saveur “Bringing the temperature up to 93° C/200° F sweetens the milk and readies its proteins for coagulation. It also causes the curds to retain more whey, for a creamier, smoother cheese”. I do not know if this is true: I have always sheepishly followed the advice and I have always had good to excellent results. Serious Eats begs to differ though. In this video (horrible sound, but with subtitles) the Italian cheese maker brings the whey up to 85 C/185 F actually, which seems to confirm the Serious Eats point of view.
Methods/recipes I tried and that I found inferior:
The Splendid Table (the cookbook)
Salvatore Ricotta Cheese Brooklyn (nice videos though)
Mozza (the cookbook)
Serious Eats
Elizabeth David
Ricotta made with lemon, citric acid, cider vinegar, apple vinegar, yogurt, buttermilk: nothing works for me as well as vegetarian rennet
I’ve never made ricotta, and I’ve always wanted to.
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ciao Jeff
do give it a go: it might take few attempts to get the consistency right, but it is very doable. This is the best method to make almost ricotta I have experimented with and I do recommend it (only yeterday I tried another method and… not as a good: time and time again, I come back to this one) stefano
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This is definitely on my to do list. I’ve tried my hand at homemade “almost ricotta” before, and never got results I thought made it worth the effort. Those invariably called for some sort of acid, lemon juice or vinegar or such, to separate the curd from the whey. Now I need to find me some vegan rennet…
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Look forward to hear about “Fariello artisanal “ricca-otta”” (so that u cannot be sued for selling fake goods)
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Lovely read Stefano. Last time I was in Australia I was so impressed with the lovely fresh ricotta that is made there!
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ciao Alice and thanks. Nice to know that the Ozzies are getting good at making ricotta… It should not be difficult and yet, here in London, the quality pretty poor: only yesterday I tried again to buy some from a urban, small, dairy that makes wonderful cheese: nop!.. the weirdest looking ricotta I have seen (grey and granula) and I could smell the rennet as soon as I open the tub…
…more in general here in London there is a serious problem with food knowledge, mainly because, food is all in all a “let’s try a new thing/let’s give a twist on an old food”: this approach (that can indeed bring interesting results, if there is clever cook stirring the boat) is that if one does not not really know the basic rules/grammar ecc, one cannot get rid off them. I was talking with a very good greengrocer few days ago and she was really despairing: she told me:” stefano, my buyer is an english dinner lady that does not eat the stuff she sells, she goes up to Italy and buys without really knowing what to buy – hence the product we often get here (or the food produce), is second rate”.
still, one has to be optimistic and hoping that little by little ecc ecc…. even if I think that once one looses a food culture, it is very, very difficult and very very slow to re-create it, as an every day, living creature, not as an exceptional aspect of your life.
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Ciao Stefano, I have not tried making ricotta with rennet yet. The results using vinegar or lemon juice were already better than store-bought. But you are right, not as good as what I’ve had in restaurants in Puglia (where it is often included in the antipasti della casa). I had to giggle at the amount of milk specified in ml. I will definitely refer to your excellent post when I do get around to trying my hand at this. By the way, I think I agree that heating to 85C is sufficient.
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Ciao Stefano… I am afraid nothing will be as good as real Italian ricotta, especially if compared with ricotta from Puglia. I will be making ricotta again soon and I will try the 85 degree mark, thanks for the tip
St
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I really appreciate this tutorial, Stefano. I have tried making ricotta using lemon juice and vinegar, and I’ve had terrible results. I have to start by finding your vegetarian rennet. I am in San Francisco now, so I will try finding it here. There tends to be more resources available here than in Tucson. The other problem we have in the United States is the quality of our cream and milk. I will definitely keep you posted… Hope all is well with you and that spring is in full bloom in London! D
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Ciao david: San francisco: will u have time to visit some of “the big guys”? , Chez Panisse, Zuni, Tartine ecc?? I would not be surprised if u will be able to taste/get some excellent ricotta there (if u see it, get and taste the Salvatore Ricotta, I have heard excellent things about it BUT u know the taste of real ricotta and u will be able to judge) stefano
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Ciao Stefano, I will be going to Tartine today, but won’t get to the others. Have been enjoying the smaller patisseries the city has to offer, and cooking in with my friend. I will look for the ricotta at the market – I hadn’t heard of it!
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David I will look forward to have yr opinion, especially about the bread (which, from the tartine style bakeries here in London I have never enjoyed, but… as I said: not the real thing) s
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per esempio sabato mattina tra le 11 e le 13.
ci sei???
________________________________ Da: Italian home cooking Inviato: sabato 31 marzo 2018 20:23 A: Daniela Ricotti Oggetto: [New post] La mia quasi ricotta (almost ricotta)
stefano arturi posted: ” Ricotta is for me strongly associated with Easter and Spring cooking in general: it plays a crucial roles in beloved seasonal dishes, from Ligurian Torta Pasqualina (when the original, more appropriate Ligurian cheese prescinseua cannot be found”
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