Panacea: Ricotta Cheese

I was reminded recently that I never delivered on the promised Part II to this post.  Better late than never?

So, we made ricotta.  Though, as I read about ricotta, I get the sense that our ricotta is not really ricotta.  Ricotta is Italian for 'recooked'.  Because, evidently, it's traditionally made by reheating the whey left over from making some other cheese, adding in some acid to pull out the last remaining bits of protein and make them into something edible.  We are not the goddesses of efficiency that the ancient peasants of the Italian countryside were.  We buy our acid from Surfas.  We make our cheese from milk.



Regardless, though, making cheese at home is not hard at all, pretty inexpensive, and really satisfying.  In broad strokes, you heat up salted milk, add an acid (we used ascorbic acid in powder form, you can also use powdered citric acid or lemon juice (though I hear that the latter doesn't set up quite as well as the other two)), and watch as it curdles.  It's fascinating -- just like Little Miss Muffet, you end up with a pot of completely separate curds and whey.  Then, you scoop out the curds and drain them over some cheesecloth, and in the case of our recipe, mix in a bit of half and half to beef it up.  That's it.  Easy peasy, ricotta cheesy.


The end result was creamy, slightly spreadable, with a mild flavor that would go great with sweet or savory.  But then, wee took it one step further: we used some of the resulting cheese for a next-level cheese experience -- ricotta salata.  You take ricotta, add more salt, and press it in a cheese mold: in our case, a large clean tomato can with both ends removed.  After a couple days in the fridge, weighed down with a heavy jar, you get a more strongly flavored semi-hard cheese that you can grate or slice. 



I tend to fly fast and loose with dairy, and make substitutions based on texture.  Aside from classic uses like lasagne, cannoli, or just spreading on bread with whatever (I would choose honey), I could see sneaking ricotta into artichoke dip as a lower-fat alternative to sour cream or mayo.  And how good would it be mixed with some brown sugar and vanilla for a dip with fruit!  (I want that now.)  And the ricotta salata is great on a cheese plate or grated into a salad.



Two kinds of cheese and house-cured salmon, all in an afternoon.  Maybe we are goddesses of efficiency after all.

Our recipe came from Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It.  Smitten Kitchen has a more decadent take on ricotta.

Panacea: Gravlax

 On a perfectly crisp day during winter break, I was at a fancy craft fair in a backyard in Angelino Heights, a block away from Carroll Avenue (one of those amazing secret treasures of Los Angeles that you really ought to see), with my friends Rachel and Jodi.  Rachel turned to us and said one of those things that, in normal circles, would be totally weird, but among us is perfectly normal.  Par for the course, actually.  All excited, she said, "You guys!  We should start a club where we cure things! Like, make sausages, and gravlax, and stuff like that!  Wouldn't that be awesome?!"  And supportive friends that we are, we totally agreed.  Of course it would be awesome.

As we browsed the crafts, we fleshed this idea out, and eventually I even came up with a name for our club: Panacea.  Because, you see, we cure all.  And on new year's eve day, our planacea became reality.

Our first project was gravlax:  a Swedish dish of salmon cured with a sugar and salt mixture and aromatic herbs.  After a few days wrapped tightly in the fridge, you wipe all that stuff off the fish's surface, and end up with a salty-sweet, flavorful product, ready to be sliced thin and eaten on dark bread (or whatever you want).

Guided by a great book called Jam It, Pickle It, Cure It, the three of us took a few slow-foodish hours, and in the end, were on our way to having created something that felt really substantial.  Using recipes in the book, we made two varieties of gravlax:  one classic, packed with lots of fresh dill, and the other, with fresh fennel and orange zest.

I come from a long line of women who crowd into kitchens together, and have had a good share of girly dinner parties with my own friends, too.  There's an efficient, perfect rhythm to women cooking together.  The three of us worked so well with each other:  sharing tasks, cleaning as we went along.  We shared the same space gracefully, all the while gabbing, catching up, laughing a lot.

Things went so well that we even DIY'ed a batch of ricotta cheese once the gravlax were prepped.  But that's a story for another day.   For now, gravlax.  And Murray.

oh, hello, Murray

PS It's Rachel's birthday today!  Happy, happy birthday, Rachel!