Ricotta - Mad Millie's Beginner's Italian Cheese Kit

Ricotta is a rather tasty, surprisingly quick & easy to make byproduct of making other cheeses.  Essentially, you take the leftover whey after you have scooped out the curds for your other cheeses, then curdle it.

So, seeing as I had about 3 litres of whey left from making two batches of Halloumi, I figured I may as well give it a shot.  First you heat the why up to 90 degrees, and then begin putting white vinegar in until you can see small specks of curds forming.  I assume you could potentially use lemon juice at this point, though perhaps you would need more of it than the vinegar and it may impart some flavour to the cheese.

 

The good thing about starting off with these kits is that they come with everything you need.  And the good thing about having lovely friends and family like I do is that they get you not one, but two different kits.  In the Italian Cheese Kit you get a Ricotta mould, which, sensibly, is where I scooped the curds that had settled at the top of the pot after sitting off the heat for about 10 minutes.

  

I think I possibly could have let the cheese sit in that basket to drain off a little bit more of the whey, but as you can see, once it was dumped out into a container it looks basically how the bought ones do.  Then it was just a matter of figuring out what to do with it!

Normally I mix it with chopped spinach and make canneloni, but I wanted to try something else, so after googling for a while I found that a common combination was pasta, peas and Ricotta.  That sounded tasty enough so I made up a batch or two for some lunches.

Sweat some finely chopped shallots in olive oil while you boil some pasta - I chose seashell shapes, but a lot of recipes mentioned orechiette.  Once both were cooked I tossed them together with some thawed frozen baby peas, a dash or two of lemon juice and some chopped basil & parsley.  

I probably should have let it cool down a little first as the peas ended up close to being over done, but not enough to ruin the whole thing.  Then it was simply a matter of tossing through the ricotta and to round out the dish I added some prosciutto which helped add a saltiness that was a bit lacking.

The final result was quite tasty indeed, especially when it started off as leftovers from something else delicious!

Halloumi - Mad Millie's DIY Fresh Cheese Kit

There's a strong DIY streak in me, in fact a few more knocks on the head and I reckon I could easily become one of those crazy survivalist, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it, type of folks.  You know, the ones wandering around the forest eating hedgehogs and the "tender" parts of flax bushes.  I don't mean the Bear Grylls kind either, i'm talking long hair, feral beard and barefeet.

Fortunately I haven't yet gone crazy, and most of my DIY interests are constrained to technology and food.  If I get time this week i'm hoping to have a go at taking a live sheep and turning it into meats, in particular sausages.  But as its been quite rainy the last couple of days i've been stuck in side.

Having just had a birthday and been spoilt rotten with lovely gifts i've had plenty to do, including making some cheese!  I got given two of these Mad Millie kits, they contain basically everything you need to make a variety of cheese, everything except milk and some pots.

I'm hoping to get some raw milk to work with later on this week, though time is flying already, but in the meantime I whipped in to the supermarket and bought 6 litres of bottled stuff and flicked through the recipe book to find one that didn't look too hard.

The only cheeses i've made previously have been Paneer, the simple Indian cheese that i'd first had in a variety of delicious curries.  Paneer is really easy to make, so get to googling and have a go - you need very little equipment really and it doesn't need anything like rennet or mesophilic starters and the like.

Perhaps my previous experience with Paneer was what inspired me to give Halloumi a go, they are in many ways quite similar cheeses.  The recipe in the kit looked like it only needed a short amount of time to complete, so I figured it would give the afternoon free to get some fencing done if the weather cleared.

I gather most cheese making follows the same basic procedures.  First, warm the milk to a specified temperature & then add the stuff that'll begin the curdling - in this case some calcium somethingerather & a rennet.

 

Then you let it curdle for a bit, again at a specified temperature, before you hopefully get a nice clean break & can then cut the curd.

  

Now, apologies but i'm no expert on this so my knowledge is getting hazy.  I think you next cook the curds, though with this Halloumi recipe that meant keeping it in the hot water bath at the same temperature and stirring the curds around until they got smaller.  After that, scoop them up & chuck them into a muslin lined mould.  I found a nicely sized steamer that did the trick - though I think it would have been better had it had wholes around the sides as well as the bottom.

 

Then you press the cheese, ideally I think the recipe would tell you the weight & time you should press it for.  Mad Millie's didn't so I just winged it, and I think I was a bit too hasty - it could have done with longer to firm up more & squeeze more of the whey out.

 I then forgot to photograph the next step which is where you essentially cook the block of cheese again.  This might be the cooking of the curds bit when it comes to Halloumi.  Essentially you cut it into blocks & then put it into hot water, or in some recipes i've seen the discarded whey.  It sinks initially, but after 5-10 minutes it floats up to the surface, ready for salting & cooling.

 

All that remains is to let it cool down completely, and then to cook it & eat it.  This is where i'd come slightly unstuck.  I'm not actually a huge fan of Halloumi, but I think that's mostly because I don't really know what to do with it.  I really like it when its been griddled & then cut into small pieces scattered through a salad, but I gather that more often than not you get it as a griddled slab alongside something else.

I'd neglected to buy any salad ingredients when I was at the supermarket, but I really wanted to taste the end result so just fried it up as a bit more protein to go along with my steak.  Weird, I know, but it kinda worked.  The texture came out a bit rubbery and it was quite bland as I don't think I salted it enough after the boiling.  Perhaps giving myself 3 out of 5 is a bit generous, but hey it was my first effort and came out pretty good.

 

Next I think i'll try to make some Feta, or maybe Cottage Cheese, once i've mastered those I think its onto some Italian cheeses like Riccotta or Mozzarella and then if i'm very ambitious, hard cheeses.  These Mad Millie's kits seem to be a very easy and accessible way to get into cheese making.  Maybe I was lucky to hit success right off the bat, but I can now see myself getting into this hobby in a big way.