Homemade ricotta & blue cheese spread

I had never thought of making my own ricotta or I had probably put the idea in the too hard basket, until very recently when I went to this amazing Food Photography pracshop organised by Sophie Hansen from the excellent blog Local is Lovely with my photographic hero Luisa Brimble and famous Basque-American lifestyle and food photographer Aran Goyoaga of the gorgeous blog Cannelle Vanille.

Sophie not only organised everything but fed us like royalty… The menu, of which you can see a glimpse and enjoy the recipes HERE, was a taste bud feast and voyage as we say. One of the unforgettable desserts was the Goat Curd Cheese cake with Honeycomb. It involved making goat ricotta. I first thought… errr…. yeah… why not… And had a slice and literally fell from my chair.

Since then I have made 6 ricotta recipes at home, including one epic failure. Damn… I forgot to photograph it and at it to my {epic failures} collection. I used Sophie’s simple recipe and added my French touch.

I had no idea that making ricotta took a few minutes and was dead simple. Geez… if I knew…
It is as simple as boiling fresh full cream milk (not the long life one) homogenised or not, and adding lemon juice and salt. The filtering is the next step and that’s it.
First I bought a cheese cloth which has been the star prop of food styling for a while except in mine ;) The inconvenient is that it is very fragile and is 1 use only. You buy a roll or a large square and you cut what you need and chuck it at the end.
Then I found this marvel (photo above and below) from Honest to Goodness, a local Sydney company.

It is sold as a nut milk bag but can be used for cheese making. It goes in the washing machine and has its own cord that you can hang to the usual wooden spoon on an upside down stool or any creative contraption.

The time the curd stays in the bag can vary from 5 mins to 1 hour. The longer you wait the dryer the ricotta will be.
The whey you will get can be used in many recipes including:
– bread making,
– feeding your bread starter,
– stock
– soup
– stew
– risotto
– salad dressing
– smoothie
– ice-cream, sorbet
– pancakes
– a fresh drink, poured as is with ice-cubes for a tangy refreshing drink.
– or you can freeze it for later…

To make this recipe I just did what my mum used to do with French faisselle, a sort of ricotta or “country fresh cheese” which you buy at local markets or cheese mongers. You strain it a little, add a lot of freshly cracked pepper, chives and salt. That’s it.
Because I like to play with my garden herbs, I added oregano, a mini parsley branch I cut by mistake, and lots of lemon thyme because it goes so well with the lemon juice used in the cheese making process.

You don’t have to, but adding any sort of blue cheese to this mix is delicious. Its earthiness contrasts with the creaminess of ricotta. It makes a more complex spread and is particularly good on a fresh or toasted sourdough slice.

When you have guests, you can either spread little toasts or pieces of fresh bread or just slice bread on a board and leave the spread in a bowl for people to DIY spreading…

So here it is!

Let me know what you think :)

NOTE: this post is not sponsored.

INFO: there are many ways to make ricotta, this is the simplest one. You can choose to use another method adding cream or using buttermilk or cooking the ricotta with whey. Here is a link to two interesting recipes on The Italian Dish blog. Also this recipe is called ricotta by many but can be the base of many other traditional cheeses :)

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