Homemade Ricotta

I love most kinds of cheese. Making and enjoying fresh cheese at home is the best. I really love making and enjoying delishious things from scratch and often times it's more the process than the result that I find soothing and enjoyable. Today I'm not sure if it was the process or the result that I liked better. Homemade Ricotta is so simple and easy to make, and the product devine.

While the process I use here to make Ricotta is really the same as Indian Paneer cheese, it is also the quick way to make a cheese very similar to Ricotta at home. The difference is that real Ricotta is made from the whey that is a byproduct from making other cheeses. This process uses milk that is curdled by adding an acid. The acid can be citric acid, lemon juice, buttermilk or distilled vinegar.

A few simple ingredients: basically milk, vinegar and some salt to taste. Bring ingredients to temperature and the acid will curdle the milk, leading to whey and milk solids to separate.

The curds are scooped into a strainer lined with multiple layers of cheesecloth. It is drained to desired consistency, and can even be pressed when making Paneer that is to be cut in cubes.

After letting the cheese dry for about an hour in the fridge, the result was a pretty firm cheese with a great crubly texture. Two cups of whole milk made one disk of cheese that was about 2 inches wide and I'd say a pretty good portion for one person!

It made a perfect topping to awonderful open faced sandwich. Had some good walnut levain bread from Acme Bread on hand, topped with leftover fresh basil pesto that I made for dinner over pasta a few evenings ago, a few slices of tomato (picked fresh of the vines from my home grown urban patio container garden I should say!). Some crumbly Ricotta and a few grinds of fresh black pepper and sea salt. It does not get much better than this.

Grilling the sandwich under the broiler for a few minutes melted the pesto and lightly toasted the bread. The cheese softened a bit but retained structure and got some nicely browned peaks.

Definitely delishious either warm or cold!