kthread cooks: ricotta
While it traditionally provides creamy inner layers for lasagna, fresh ricotta is even lovelier on top of pasta and crostini–for pasta, I like smaller shapes, with some pork (pancetta works) and a green vegetable (pea sprouts with new peas on the ends are my current favorite) and for crostini, the ricotta with a mostarda or balsamic vinegar (I used fig syrup my friend Jessica brought me from Israel).
Made well, this amalgam of milk protein curds tops a dish rather than slipping shyly into a sauce or tarted up in a cannoli–as a purist, I like to see the one-time cheese by-product step up as the ingredient of note. (Watch this in HD here.)
Recipe: It’s 1:4 parts buttermilk (or clabbered milk) to whole milk; heat until steaming in a pan, stirring. Then, let it boil for five to seven minutes (I went longer and overcooked mine, wanting more curds) and ladle the curds into a colander lined with six layers of cheesecloth. Let it drain for fifteen minutes in the refrigerator. Use immediately or keep chilled in an airtight container (a small plastic tub is perfect) and use within the week.
listening recommendation: “Cheese and Curds and Whey,” The Singing Milkmaids
reading recommendation: Ricky Ricotta’s Mighty Robot series (and the game)
ricotta wallpaper on Flickr
drink pairing: Pinot Grigio
salt recommendation: Hawaiian red or the very crunchy flat sea salt flakes
What do you put ricotta on/in?
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Posted by Kristen Taylor on Sunday, October 5th, 2008, 8:26 pm * Filed in Food, Video. * Tags: cheese, cooks, Food, kitchen, kristen, kthread, ricotta, taylor. Follow responses through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 6th, 2008 at 8:03 am
should i be embarrassed to admit that i’ve never liked ricotta cheese in lasagne. it so often comes out dry and clumpy–kinda like soy cheese. perhaps i haven’t found the right recipe. until then, it’s cottage cheese all the way.
October 6th, 2008 at 8:11 am
Really? Hmm, I can’t support cottage cheese. I did like the goat cheese sauce in that unusual lasagne we used to make as the white sauce.
I’m really liking ricotta as a topping these days instead; you should make some for fun :)
October 6th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
First things first: EW! Cottage cheese on lasagna? Shame on you, Ben!
Ahem.
Kristen, I’m actually craving lasagna these days, so I’m eager to try this out.
October 6th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Dana, thank you and agreed. No more cottage cheese discussion around these parts.
And, let me know how your ricotta turns out–will look forward to living vicariously through your Flickrs of it :)
October 6th, 2008 at 7:37 pm
hey now, cottage cheese gets a bad rap, and i’ll point out that it’s a low fat source of calcium and protein. that said, your Greek lasagne, Kristen, is delicious. i was scared of it at first but grew to love it. the poblano peppers add spice to the goat cheese’s savoriness–you should submit the recipe to some low-carb cookbook.