Little Green Cheese

Cheese making at home with Gavin Webber the Cheeseman

Baked Ricotta

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During our last cheesemaking course, I made the usual batch of fresh ricotta.

I have this very special and somewhat secret recipe (who am I kidding?), that makes simply the creamiest and smoothest whole milk ricotta on the planet. Honestly. Ask anyone who has attended my class!

baked ricotta

If you are intrigued, then you can find the recipe here.

Anyway, what is one to do with 500 grams (1 lbs) of fresh ricotta. We had already made a Chocolate Ricotta Tart previously, so Kim wanted to try something savory.

Enter the Baked Ricotta. One of the students in the class was raving about this dish, so we decided to have a go at making it.

This is one of the most amazing cheese dishes I have ever tasted. We had a little on a cheese platter with crackers the day Kim baked it. The flavour was sensational!

I have also been taking a quarter of one every couple of days to work for lunch. I was the envy of the entire lunch room.

So for those who desperately need it, here is the recipe that Kim devised. I have indicated the ingredients that we grew or made ourselves;

Baked Ricotta

baked ricottaIngredients

  • Olive oil, to grease
  • 500g fresh ricotta (home-made)
  • 2 eggs, lightly whisked (home laid)
  • ½ cup finely chopped fresh garlic chives (home-grown)
  • 1 teaspoon dried chilli flakes (home-grown)
  • Salt & freshly ground black pepper

Method

  1. Preheat oven to 180°C (356°F).
  2. Brush two 250ml (1 cup) capacity ramekins with oil to lightly grease.
  3. Combine ricotta, egg, chives and chili in a bowl. Season with salt and pepper.
  4. Spoon ricotta mixture among ramekins and smooth the surface.
  5. Place on a baking tray. Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until golden and set. Set aside for 30 minutes to cool.
  6. Turn onto a cheese board. Serve with toast or fresh french stick slices.

I cannot get over how simple this was to make. The chili adds a lovely bite to the dish, and once you start it is very hard to stop eating this treat.
baked ricotta

I certainly know what we’re going to be making after my next cheese making class.  Baked Ricotta!

Has anyone else made a variation on this dish? What did it taste like? Did you make your own ricotta?

Tzafatit Update

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I love the cheese making community we have here.  When I posted the Tzafatit recipe a few days ago, soon there after I received a voice mail from Cassidy Rowland who lives in San Diego, California USA.  I will play her message during the next podcast episode.

She took the instructions and made the cheese as per the instructions.  Brilliant work, so here is a Tzafatit update. Here are her notes (in red).

Tzafatit

INGREDIENTS

  • 3 Litres Whole (Full Cream) Milk or 3 quarts.
  • 3 large granules (3 ml I think) of Calcium Chloride in 2 tsp water (or equiv
    of liquid)
  • Mesophilic Culture (small amount)  I used 1 smidgen of Aroma B
  • 2 tsp Vinegar
  • 4 drops liquid rennet in 2 Tbsp  Water
  • 3 Tbsp Cheese Salt
Method
  1. Heat milk to 37° C or 99° F.   Add Culture, Calcium Chloride, Vinegar and Rennet and stir while adding each ingredient   I added the culture first, let it rehydrate for 2 minutes before stirring it in and then added the rest of the ingredients.
  2. Hold the heat for 40 minutes without moving pot.  It set a curd immediately
  3. Cut the curd into 1/2 cm or 3/8 inch cubes, then let it rest for 10 minutes
  4. Stir the curds slowly for 15 minutes
  5. Drain the whey until it is at the curd line
  6. Add the salt and mix through for around 2 minutes.  I tasted  at this point –  it seemed very salty; I don’t know what the ratio should be but on first taste I venture only 1 tablespoon rather than 3.
  7. Place in small cheese hoops and flip every 15 minutes for the first hour.  After the 2nd flip, the cheese was still rather loose and fragile with a piece breaking off despite careful handling.  When
    it was still fragile after the 3rd flip, I added a 2.5 lb weight on top of my mould for the rest of the draining.
  8. Let sit for 12 hours draining.
  9. Put in Fridge  It was refrigerated at 7am Pacific Standard Time; I plan on making a taste tonight when I return from work.
Tzafatit curd before placing in mould

 

In the 5 inch mould
Cassidy’s Tasting notes:
I have done a tasting; the best I can say it is very similar to some of the fresh Mexican type cheese we can easily buy here in San Diego:

It is very mild, really almost bland, and not as salty as my first taste last night. In my opinion, it is not an interesting cheese, more a cheese to grate/crumble to mix into a burrito or other food, not something to have on its own. Should others have a different outcome than I have, I would be very interested in the differences in cultures, etc. Grist for the mill, as one might say.

Tzafatit update
Unmoulded Tzafatit cheese. The crack is still visible

Gavin’s notes:

Great work Cassidy, and thanks for giving this recipe a go. Sounds very much like Queso blanco, but maybe a little bit saltier if you add the 3 Tbspns. When it cools down here, I am going to use smaller width Camembert moulds and see if that makes a difference. +Dovid Wheeler do you have any tips?

What Does 2 Year Old Romano Taste Like? Let Me Tell You!

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Look what I found lurking at that back of the cheese fridge!  It is a 2 year old Romano that I made way back in 2011.
I cannot believe that I managed to keep from eating it for so long.  You will notice that I originally planned to age this for 10 months, but something must have gone wrong in the time-space continuum, and it got lost somewhere in that wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff.
Dr Who references aside, this was the first cheese that I made with raw milk, playing it safe with the choice of cheese.  The milk I received from a friend, hoping that it would be the best cheese ever.  Well, I think I got pretty close.
So let’s have a look at this 2 year old Romano aged beauty, shall we?

The wax was intact, and no whey leakage as I removed it.

It was oily to touch, and quite hard.  At this stage I thought it might have completely dried out.

I cut it apart gently with two knives.  It had a few small holes in it, but nothing like the eyes of the swiss style cheeses that I have made previously.

The texture was oily and had a waxy feel to it.  It did smell incredible.  Not as strong as an aged Parmesan, but still quite pungent.  The centre still had moisture to it, but I could only press my fingernail into the cheese.  Slightly hard.

It was difficult to cut slices from, so to keep all of my fingers intact, I decided to shave some off using a vegetable peeler.

This method worked very well, and I created some quite amazing shavings.  I vacuum packed a one half and shaved the other.

But what about the flavour?

Well, it was simply amazing!  Sharp tasting, that lingered on the palette afterwards.  Blown away by this cheese and how incredible it is (was).  It just goes to show how patience, a long maturation period, and great ingredients can all come together and make something truly wonderful.It really compliments pasta dishes, and is particularly excellent on homemade spaghetti and meatballs.

I think I need to make some more Romano.

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