Adventures in cheese - home made Ricotta

Making cheese is one of the basic skills I want to learn - so I'm starting with the easiest one there is - a basic Ricotta.  I'm not quite ready for fully self sufficiency just yet, given that I am cheating and using a Mad Millie kit that I was given last Christmas - but hey its a start right?

Actually the pack "Mad Millie Italian Cheese Kit" is great  - its a New Zealand company (such a creative bunch) but you can pick it up for about £20 in the UK and it has all the basic equipment  you need to get started - so great if you just want to have a go before you embark on full scale Cathedral City style industrial production.



I used the recipe from the booklet and handy video tutorials (I'm a sucker for a good video tutorial) that came with the set, and virtually hold your hand on this cheesy journey.  I halved the volumes as just for two of us and have added any observations of my own going through.  This has inadvertently turned into a bit of product review, so if you want a bit more of detailed guide to making and perfecting Ricotta I recommend checking out Serious Eats comments on the subject.

Ingredients
1 litre full fat milk
1/2 tsp salt (from the pack)
1/2 tsp citric acid (from the pack) dissolved in 2 tbsp cold water

Equipment
Saucepan
Small stainless steel sieve or slotted spoon
Measuring spoons
Ricotta basket and container (from the pack) you could use a small sieve for this
Food thermometer (from the pack) can't get round this - you need to know the temperature
Sterilising crystals (from the pack) you could probably use sterilising tablets like Milton

Method

Mmm apetizing!

1. Start off with sterilising your equipment - I did it in the saucepan I was going to use and did the ricotta basket, thermometer, slotted spoon.  Drain thoroughly or presumably you will have Milton flavoured cheese YUM
2. Pour the milk into your sterilised pan and add the salt. Pop in the thermometer making sure the little temperature nodes are submerged
3. Heat the milk to 95 degrees C/203 degrees F, stirring all the time.  I heated over a medium heat (6 or 7 on my hob) so the milk didn't catch.
4. Once up to temp, remove from the heat and stir in the citric acid solution
5. The milk mixture will curdle immediately.  It looks disgusting - like baby sick, which I guess its not too dissimilar to actually.
6. Leave to cool for at least half an hour, to let the ricotta firm up
7. Put the drainage basket into its container (or sieve over a bowl). Once firm enough - it needs to clump and not just fall straight through the holes in the drainer, carefully scoop up the curds and layer them into the drainer basket.  The waste liquid - is that whey? - smells a pretty gross
8. The liquid will continue to drip out and will change the consistency of the finished product.  The longer you leave it, the drier and crumblier it will be.  Using the info from the Serious Eats guide, I drained mine for 20 minutes for a fairly dry texture to use in ravioli - it all looks ok so far!
9. Keep in the fridge for up to a week

And there it is - I made cheese!  Next stop  - to make Ricotta and Swiss Chard ravioli, and then Mozzarella will be next in the cheese making odyssey.

I maked cheese!

I would recommend the product - definitely good to help you find your cheesy feet - the whole curdling bit is so alien (looks and smells grim) that its nice to have everything made easy for you - you don't need to buy any other specialist kit or ingredients while you are just trying it out. Probably won't need to replace anything once I've done it a few times and got my confidence. If you fancy one - you can pick up the kits in Lakeland and of course Amazon and ebay.