I know. You've seen them, too. The descriptions of how easy it is. The exhortations about how good it is, how much better than anything you can buy in the store. You've read the recipes and thought, you know, I probably could do that. But then, you haven't. It just seems like a daunting idea, the kind of thing that really must be difficult. And then, you wonder, is your strainer big enough? Where does one even buy cheesecloth? So, you've never done it. You are sure you will get to it, one day. You will make your own ricotta.
For me, that day came last Friday. My friend Nicole and her husband were coming over for dinner on Saturday, and I wanted to do something special. I've written about Nicole in this blog before: she is a stone cold solid good cook. She is also, like me, a competitive person, so while I think our mutual respect took us past one-upsmanship (my computer is insisting that isn't a word. Is that a word? Is it a phrase?) remarkably quickly, I do want to do something special when I know she is going to be eating my food. Even more than keeping her respect, I know that she will appreciate what I've done, and it is always nice to perform for an educated, appreciative audience.
I've been reading a wonderful blog out of Seattle called "I Made That!," written by a truly ambitious and adventurous cook who makes all sorts of things one would think one could make in a home kitchen, things like pork buns stuffed with homemade char siu, olive oil crackers and, almost as an afterthought, ricotta to put on those crackers. She is inspiring, even I don't think I'll be cranking out tortillas anytime soon. I used her recipe for ricotta, which uses buttermilk to curdle the milk instead of the also common salt. I went out and bought a shiny new medium-sized mesh strainer, and, yes, some cheesecloth. To my great surprise, my beloved Super 1 stocks cheesecloth. Who knew?
Everything you have read is correct. It is easy to make ricotta. So easy you will wonder what took you so long. And it is so good. So, so good. So totally beyond what you think of as ricotta. You know the difference between traditional supermarket tomatoes --the ones picked green and gassed into redness, so hard they are nearly crunchy, so completely lacking in flavor -- and home grown tomatoes picked off the vine and still warm from the sun? We are talking that level of difference. We are talking that level of goodness. Dan, also at the dinner party, struggled to describe it: "it's fluffy," he said, "and in between clotted cream and whipped cream, but with a little tang." It is, in short, heavenly. I know this won't convince you any more than any of the other odes to homemade ricotta's goodness or ease, but it should. It really, really should.
So, here's the recipe, straight from "I Made That!":
In a large pot, combine 6 1/2 cups whole milk, 1 1/2 cups heavy cream, and 2 cups buttermilk. Cook over medium heat, uncovered, until the curds form and the whey is clear. Turn the heat off, and let sit for 1/2 hour to strengthen the curds. Pour through a strainer lined with a double layer of cheesecloth, and let drain until it reaches the desired consistency. Add about 1 tbsp of salt.
That's it. It took about an hour in total, but of that I only had to pay attention maybe ten minutes. For the dinner party, I served it on bruschetta with pistachios and honey (again, straight from the website), and with basil, olive oil, and black pepper. It was delicious.
But, the best was yet to come. The real revelation. The moment the heavens opened up and the food gods shined their light upon me. The gnudi. That deserves more emphasis: THE GNUDI. Cue hosts of angels to sing hosannas. THE GNUDI!
Even after the bruschetta, I had half a pound of ricotta left, and I remembered seeing a recipe in my beautiful Barbara Lynch cookbook, Stir, that called for fresh ricotta. It was for ricotta gnudi, which I have heard elsewhere described as ricotta gnocchi, but which she explains as what would happen if you left the pasta off cheese ravioli. The filling would be nude -- get it? (Hint: the g is silent). It is, like the ricotta, a ridiculously simple recipe:
Mix 1 pound fresh ricotta, 3/4 cups all purpose flour, 1 large egg, 1/3 cup parmesan grated on a microplane, 1 tbsp kosher salt and finely ground pepper together (note: I made a half batch, which feed two comfortably). Turn out on a lightly floured surface, and work in flour as needed until it just holds together. The goal is to work in as little flour as possible while still being able to shape them.
Working in small batches, roll the dough into 3/4 inch diameter logs. It should still be very, very soft. It felt like there was a thin coating of flour that let me work with it, but that the insides of the log were still super squishy. Cut the logs into 1 inch pieces, and then roll each piece into a rough ball. Roll each ball over the back of a fork, so that you get gnocchi style grooves. Honestly, these cooked up so soft that I'm not sure the grooves even survived, so I think this last step might be superfluous. The next step is the genius one: place them on a baking sheet and freeze them. If you don't do this, you will have no chance of them holding together when you cook them.
When you are ready to serve them, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Have your sauce (I used a stupidly simple tomato sauce, just crushed canned tomatoes, red pepper flakes and garlic, with torn basil thrown in at the end) hot and nearby. Have plates, warm and nearby. Toss your frozen gnudi into the water, and then take out as soon as they float. It happens really fast -- two minutes or less. Put them directly into your warm sauce. You will see that, as you stir, they will start to break apart, so stir as little as possible to get them coated. Serve immediately. I topped mine with a little more parmesan and some of my favorite olive oil, Columela.
They are so delicate, so tender, that they disintegrate in your mouth. What is left is, basically, cheese sauce. That's right -- it's cheese sauce coated in tomato sauce. You no longer have to decide if you want white or red sauce. You can have both! But it is more than that. There's a temporal aspect, as the gnudi dissolve in your mouth, and the fresh brightness of the tomato sauce and basil gives way to the richness of the cheese. It is the essence of great Italian food. So simple, all about the ingredients, all about balance, easy to put together and yet bespeaking care and craft.
We served ours with a rack of lamb, and the gnudi totally stole the show. And, I confess, I served it for passover, so I'm waiting for a plague to strike me for mixing dairy and meat. In my mind, I thought we would eat Italian style, with the gnudi first and on a separate plate, and then the lamb as a secondi, but the timing didn't work out that way. I'm hoping for frogs. I think I could live with frogs. Please don't let it be lice. Or boils. The boils sound bad. Cattle disease would be a walk in the park, since I don't own any cattle. Maybe I'm already being visited with cattle disease, and just don't know it? Whichever plague it will be, I'm pretty sure it was worth it.
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