Author Topic: Ricotta from Wholemilk - Success!  (Read 2412 times)

cheeseinmymouth

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Ricotta from Wholemilk - Success!
« on: January 31, 2011, 02:19:22 PM »
I've recently taken a new interest in cheese.  I mean, I've always been interested in cheese.  Actually I've always been in love with cheese.  I even worked as a professional cheese maker for a while.  It is my firm religious belief that cheese is God's greatest creation.

On Saturday January 29 I dove head first into the world of cheesemaking.  Like I said I used to make cheese for a living.  But I had never really made it at home.  On a whim with limited tools I decided to try for a ricotta cheese made from whole milk.

I used the following recipe:

3 liters of whole milk
100ml 5% vinegar
1.5 teaspoon of salt


Using a jerry-rigged double boiler I began to heat the milk.  While heating up I added the salt.   Photo by Tyler Ray


I heated the milk to 85c.  At this point I added 100ml of 5% rice vinegar. Photo by Tyler Ray


The whey has clearly separated from the curd in this photo.  It happened almost instantaneously but I let it sit for about 30 minutes just to make sure it had completed it's reaction.  It is ready to strain.  Photo by Tyler Ray


In order to keep the curds from washing down the drain through the strainer screen I carefully ladled the curds into the strainer.  Photo by Kristin Pederson


The end product was several cups of delicious, slightly vinegary, ricotta consistency curds.  Kristin used these curds to make lasagna later in the day that was out of this world ( and the next). Photo by Tyler Ray

I will definitely be making this easy cheese again in the near future.

One question I have, what's the difference between this and queso blanco or paneer?

See Kristin and my blog at http://prglobal.org/inthekitchen/2011/01/cheese-nuf-said/

Cheers
« Last Edit: February 02, 2011, 03:56:57 PM by cheeseinmymouth »