So as I said in my primo sale post I set out to make ricotta at home. And I did it!. After making primo sale I took the left-over whey and made ricotta. I have to be honest, ricotta didn’t turn out as well as the primo sale, I think part of the reason is that I used 2% milk for ricotta instead of whole milk, so I will have to try again using whole milk. Anyway it was on-par with most of the ricotta you find at regular supermarket in the fridge section, just not as good as the good fresh ricotta you get from specialty stores. On the other hand it was much cheaper…
UPDATE: I made ricotta again using the whey from the first batch of ricotta and now it turns out great! So don’t despair even if the first round is not that great, you’ll get there!
Ingredients
- whey leftover from making primo sale or some other cheese
- 2 cups milk
- lemon juice from 1 lemon
Directions
- Ricotta is pretty easy to make once you have the whey from making some other cheese. I just warmed up the whey mixed with some milk to about 195F and then added in the juice of 1 lemon. Kept mixing for a couple o minutes and then panicked… It seemed it didn’t work! there was sort of a white foam on the top, but I didn’t think it was ricotta… then I checked my sources and I read that ricotta looks like a foam: pfiui!
- With much relief, I poured the ricotta in a colander lined with a cheese cloth. About half an hour later the whey had drained out and the ricotta was ready to eat. I reserved the whey and froze it once cooled down. Apparently it keeps for about a month and can be reused to make ricotta. Haven’t tried it yet but hopefully it will work.
- UPDATE:I tried using the frozen whey. I added about 1 quart of whole milk to the whey and brought the temperature up to about 190F and the milk coagulated into ricotta without even needing to add any acid. And the result is much better than the last time! Needless to say, I saved the whey and am going to freeze it and use it again!
- Ricotta doesn’t keep long and is better eaten within the day.