Salad with home made ricotta

Posted by petra08 on July 10, 2016 · 13 Comments 

I have a bucket list of recipes I want to try out. I want to find new favourites and broaden my cooking horizon. Making ricotta has been on my to do list for a long time but I read that unpasteurised milk would be the best to use and I kept it in mind but didn’t do anything about it.

 

The other day I found unpasteurised milk and I knew I had to buy it and make ricotta. A friend of mine does a similar cheese and it is delicious so I thought I have to give it a go.

 

As I got the ingredients out and realised I didn’t have any citric acid that the recipe calls for, I did have a think about it and decided to give it a go anyway. I have never made ricotta I wasn’t sure what the citric acid does but I had lemons to make the milk curdle.

 

Home made ricotta 

preparation time 5 minutes 

cooking time about 40 minutes 

serves many 

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 litre or 7 1/2 cups of full fat unpasteurised milk
• 1 tsp salt
• juice of 3 lemons

Place all of the ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil and quickly reduce the heat so that the milk mixture simmers. Gently stir every now and then until the milk curdles.

Once the milk splits completely strain for about 6 hours in a cool place. I strained it over night. Once it is strained I whipped it slightly and used it as a base for a salad.

There is no right or wrong way to make a salad and this went very well with the ricotta.

 

Ricotta and courgette flower salad

preparation time 10 minutes 

cooking time 0 minutes 

serves 2

Ingredients

• about 1 dl or 1/2 cup of ricotta
• blanched and double peeled broad beans
• 1 tomato, core and seeds removed, then sliced
• 2 spring onions
• 1 small handful of toasted cashew nuts
• 1 tbsp toasted white sesame seeds
• fresh peas
• basil leaves
• 1 small courgette,sliced
• a pinch of sea salt

Plate up the ingredients, sprinkle some salt over and serve. I didn’t think the salad needed anything more but a drizzle of olive oil might be nice as well.

 

 

 

The fresh ricotta has a very delicate flavour and I got approval from my neighbour who goes to Italy on a regular basis and loves Italian food. The ricotta was more runny than the shop bought one but who cares, it tasted great and made for a perfect summer salad.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Filed under Allotment/Veg, Cheese, Courgette, Herbs, Peas, Recipe, Runner Beans, Spring onion, Starter, Tomatoes, Vegetarian · Tagged with courgette flower, home made ricotta, ricotta, ricotta salad