I use cooking as a psycho-therapy. This time I decided to make some cheese as I need to eat food without salts and sugars... Therefore, a homemade ricotta can be soothing, nutritious and healthy!
All you need is milk and rennet. Some people might add salt. Or substitute rennet with vinegar or lemon. Well, I will do this in a future effort...
I used a mixture of cow (1ltr) and goat milk (1.5ltr). Also, I used a pinch of rennet – just at the edge of the knife. You will need a deep pot, a wooden mixing spoon with a straight edge, a clean cotton cheesecloth size of about 1mx1m to be used as a strainer, a deep bowl and a classic kitchen strainer.
Put your pot on a medium heat and poor your milk in the pot. Allow the milk to get warm. Toss while taking care of the milk not sticking on the bottom of the pot. The temperature should reach 37C0. If you don’t have a thermometer (I didn’t) and by following the old people’s advice, the temperature is ok once the milk is warm enough to enter your little finger with ease – without being burnt. Take the pot off of the fire and add the pinch of rennet. Cover with the lid and allow the rennet to do its job. In my case I waited 1.5 hour before seeing the milk separate to cheese and liquid. It’s look is like it goes bad.
Place the cheesecloth on top of the strainer and put the strainer inside a deep pot. Pour the milk and liquid inside the cloth and allow it to slowly strain. It takes time so give it time. Help the straining process, if you want, by pushing the cheesecloth dumpling and squeezing out the liquid. It took me about 3hrs.
Once you see that most of the liquid is expelled, you are ready to store the cheese in the fridge. Initially I put it in a bowl with a strainer - just in case there are more liquids to be expelled. Then I transferred it into a glass bowl, covered with food film carefully and stored it in my fridge. Out of the 2.5ltrs milk I took about 0.4-0.5gr cheese.
The taste of it? Actually, very nice! I recommend you to add a little salt. Salt would add a nice twist. Other than that, I am quite satisfied I used goat’s milk as I generally eat goat dairy, but unless you like it, you should chose the dairies you prefer and know will be eaten pleasantly in your home.
Enjoy!
