Monday 7 August 2006

Homemade Ricotta Cheese

Can you "Guess What Is This Cloud Like" thing in the picture? I bet you can't right, you might think that is the cooked egg white or some over whipped cream. Actually this is my 1st Homemade Ricotta Cheese which is introduce by Tracy base of her research on some blog sites.

Ricotta is an Italian cheese made from the whey which results when making cheeses such as mozzarella or provolone. The name "ricotta" means "cooked again" in Italian, referring to the second processing of the liquid to produce the cheese. Ricotta is similar in texture to cottage cheese though considerably lighter and is a key ingredient in cheesecake, lasagna and many cannolis. It is often served mixed with sugar, cinnamon and occasionally chocolate shavings as a dessert in Italian household

For those who is interested in trying out, you might take some reference from these blogs Lex Culinaria blog, Fias Co Farm, Ricotta Making. For my case, after some simple conversion and calculation, I starts trying on using small amount of milk and I made two different batches of ricotta cheese by using buttermilk and lemon juice separately. The finally result from using lemon juice is much finer and smooth compare to the buttermilk.




Ingredients: (make about 125g ricotta cheese)
120ml Buttermilk/55ml Fresh Lemon Juice
480ml Fresh Whole Milk

Methods:
1. In a small milk saucepan, simmer the fresh whole milk over low heat until around 90 - 95 degree.(you need to have a themometer that reads up to 100 degrees or more, if not you have to estimate the timing when you saw a lot of steam rising and it's almost going to boil)
2. Slowly add in the buttermilk or lemon juice and give it a gentle stir.(do not over stir it or you will break up the large ricotta pieces)
3. You will see very tiny white particles floating in the whey.
4. Remove the pot from the heat and set it aside, covered to rest undisturbed for about 15 minutes.
5. Line a big container or mixing bowl with muslin/cheese cloth.
6. Slowly pour the whole whey mixture into the prepared bowl and drained until the no liquid left on the cloth.(the more milk you used, the longer it will take to drain)
7. When it has drained, place the ricotta in a clean contain and you can keep it in the fridge for up to one week.

Notes:
You can season the ricotta with either salt or salt depending what you wanted to used it as.

You can use it for pizza filling, crepes or making ricotta cheese cake or muffin. Posted by Picasa


6 comments:

  1. Oh, how clever! How long can this home-made ricotta keeps?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hahaha....No la.. i also learnt from other site de.... Em... according to them they said can kept in the fridge for about 1 week.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Ellena

    Where did you get your buttermilk? I have difficulties sourcing for it
    Hope you can help me =D

    God bless

    Cheers
    Saori

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Saori,

    Thanks for dropping by. I don't know where u are staying..but if is in singapore u can get it from supermaket like Cold Storage or carfour. HTH....

    God bless u too... :)
    regards
    Ellena

    ReplyDelete
  5. Ellena,
    I need help in getting muslin cloth.
    I've sent you an email.
    I hope you will see it sooon.
    Heaps of thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi there,

    Do you just leave the cheese on the muslin to drain or did you squeeze out the excess liquid?

    Thanks

    ReplyDelete

Dear All,

Thanks for leaving down your comments. I do value each and every of your suggestion(s) or comment(s) so if you are signing off as Anonymous, please kindly leave your Name so that I could address you. Thanks

Lastly, please DO NOT SPAM as Spam comments will be deleted immediately.

Regards
Ellena (Cuisine Paradise)

ShareThis