Ricotta Cheese

Hi everyone, I finally did it! I'm asking myself why I didn't try it before, since I know this recipe from age!
A big thanks to the baking class, I find the class very interesting but best of all is giving me inspiration to challenge my self.


I bet my american audience is going to be more interested in this post of my Italian one...well in Italy or Sardinia is very easy to find a good ricotta cheese, you just need to go to a small grocery store, or your favorite "salumeria". Here in US it's not so easy, even if my favorite farm make one that is not bad; well, we are speaking of ricotta cheese made from caw milk, what happened to the sheep one??? Where are the sheep in this country?
This pic show you a typical  landscape in Sardinia in a hot summer afternoon.


Going back to the ricotta cheese here the very easy recipe, I used my Thermomix ( Bimby) to warm up the milk, but you can just use a cast iron pot and a good thermometer to reach and keep the right temperature.

1 liter of Goat milk, Whole Food sells a good one, already pasteurized sigh :(
250 whole milk, I used the Stonyfield
250 heavy cream
1 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoon white vinegar.

thermometer
cheesecloth

Mix the two kind of milk with the heavy cream and bring it to 100 C degree ( 212 F degree). Avoid scorching the pan. Once the temperature is reached turn off the stove and add one teaspoon of salt, mix well. Add two tablespoons of white vinegar, mix gently with a spoon and wait few minutes to the curds to form. Gently move the curds to the cheesecloth to drain the serum (almost ten minutes), move the ricotta in a glass container. Warm up the milk again to 100 degree, turn off the stove add other 2 tablespoons of vinegar,  mix and wait to the curds to form. My curds ad this point were less big, so I pass all the milk through the clean cheesecloth. Drain for other ten minutes. 

If you have a Thermomix TM21:
Warm up the milk 15 minutes, speed 2 and 100 degree temperature for the first step.
Second step just 5 minutes, speed 2 and 100 degree.

Warm is delicious, but I refrigerated mine, pasta with ricotta cheese and saffron is on the menu for tonight :P
Save the milk serum I will keep you posted with a good way to use it.