Who knew making cheese was so easy? Seriously, who knew? Last week I was on some sort of a cheese tear and made paneer and ricotta. For this batch of ricotta I used a recipe on Mark Bittman's blog - Bitten.
Leave it to the food junkies on Bitten to point out that his recipe is really and truly NOT for ricotta cheese. Apparently true ricotta is twice cooked, meaning it is made from the milk that is left over after making mozzarella. His recipe was for paneer. Whatever. Tasted like ricotta cheese to me, actually like deliciously fresh ricotta cheese. However, it does explain my confusion as to why these 2 seemingly different cheeses were made with the same ingredients and method. As I was making the paneer, I kept thinking I must of got the recipes mixed up.
Here's how to make Bitten's recipe:
1/2 gallon (2 liters) of whole milk and a teaspon of salt. Bring it to a simmer.
Add 3 T of lemon juice. Curds will form immediately. Cook for another 3 minutes.
With a slotted spoon, take curds and allow them to drain through cheese cloth.
Tie up curds in a bundle and let drain into your sink for about 20-30 minutes. **At this point you could squish your curds together into a rectangle and make paneer.**
Here are the recipes:Food and Wine's Creamy Ricotta
Bitten's ricotta
Paneer
6 comments:
I've always been interested in making cheese...this looks quite manageable.
Now this is really cool!! I will have to give it a try.
And Bitten has a recipe for crackers. The perfect combo! Thanks, Katy!
I am totally going to try this, you made it look super easy. I didn't do the soup the exact way the recipe called for, didn't use the nuts or a few spices.....but cooking is more improvisational in my house anyway. The bad part is when I make something AWESOME then can't remember how I did it :) I am LOVING my quilt! Thanks SO much for doing it! What's up next for us? and I think Seinfeld is one of the top 5 shows EVER. I have a 'seinfeldism' for pretty much any situation!
I've seen that stuff before, I definitely have to try it, sounds great !!!
So wait. What did you do with the cheese after you made it? Just eat it on a cracker, or did you then put it in a lasagne or something? I made cottage cheese with my grandma when I was 13. Very, very cool memory for me.
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