I made cheese! I always thought this was a complex process – and still have no doubt that this is true for hard cheeses – but this homemade ricotta was a snap. Better yet, it was delicious!
I found it in the “Appetizers” chapter of Best American Recipes 2005 – 2006. They cookbook suggested mixing it with herbs and using it on crackers, which I’m sure would be great, but the suggestion that caught my eye was to use it for breakfast. Above is this simple, creamy, milky cheese with tangerine wedges, honey, and cinnamon – a simple and beguiling breakfast.
The method is this: Rinse a saucepan with cold water. (Supposedly this eases cleanup. I did it and cleanup was easy. It might have been anyway, so suit yourself on that step.) Combine in the saucepan 4 cups milk, 1 cup cream, and a scant 1 teaspoon coarse salt. (Or use about half a teaspoon regular salt.) Bring to a simmer over medium heat, then remove from heat and pour in 2 tablespoons of white vinegar. Let rest 1 minute, then stir gently for about a minute, until the curds separate out and the whey turns clear (as seen in the photo above).
Pour cheese and whey into a strainer lined with cheesecloth and set over a bowl to catch the whey. Let strain for 15 minutes or until the cheese is as firm as you’d like it. (This is the one place I had trouble – I had no cheesecloth, so I used coffee filters and it drained really slowly.)
That’s it! Eat right away or keep for 4 days or so.
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