Fresh Cheese

I've been meaning to jump on the homemade yogurt bandwagon for a while. Since we go through gallons of yogurt every month, it seems like something I should at least try once. While researching how to make yogurt, fresh ricotta came up in a number of postings, as well as in my go-to cookbook for things like this, How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. I ambitiously purchased all the ingredients for yogurt and fresh cheese earlier this week, but never found the time to actually try it until today. Since the yogurt required a bit more attention, I decided to start out with the ricotta* first and move on to yogurt this weekend.

The recipe is incredibly simple: 1/2 gallon of milk, 1 quart buttermilk, and a couple pinches of salt. Bring milk to a slow boil, pour in buttermilk and stir until the curds separate from the whey. The whole thing was a bit like a science experiment, but in this case you end up with something tasty rather than a table full of suds or shattered beakers. And really, the hardest part is tending the boiling milk so it doesn't scorch. With that said, I made the fresh cheese while also entertaining/feeding Miles. In other words, you don't have to watch it that closely. 

After the curds separate, you dump the whole thing into a colander lined with a triple layer of cheese cloth. I was a little less than careful while pouring, so I managed to get splashes of curds all over my jacket. You then just gather up the cheesecloth ends and twist so the curds gather into a ball. It's pretty hot, so I had to run the ball under cold water until it was cool enough to handle. Then, just squeeze the crap out of it until a good deal of the liquid is gone. My technique for pressing was to twist the top and use my other hand to press from the bottom to keep the nice round shape. 

It took a few minutes, but eventually I felt that it was firm enough to let set. Basically, you just leave it tied up for an hour or so and it hardens a little more.

I've also read that you can use the reserved whey to make bread or soak grains. I'm going to look into this further since I have at least a half gallon of leftover from this project.

So the verdict? Well, the overall taste was sort of meh. I think it needs a lot more salt. Next time I'll probably put a tablespoon or two. The texture is pretty good though, resembling a sort of queso fresco that you'd buy at the grocery store. It can be cut in slices or crumbled. Mark Bittman suggests that you can take the fresh cheese and brine it, which is what I think I'll do with this batch since it's a little too bland to add much to a dish. You can also add a number of things to it before pressing, like pesto, roasted peppers, various herbs, or fresh ground black pepper. I'm definitely going to play around with the ingredients and perfect my technique techniques. It's a fun, quick project that has a lot of potential!

*What I made is actually not ricotta, which uses considerably less buttermilk. It's just termed fresh cheese, which apparently is also the recipe for cottage cheese -- you just let the curds stand in the cheesecloth rather than pressing them into a ball.