Savor Culture

Homemade ricotta is fluffy... but is it tasty?

Having tried my hand at making ricotta from whey and from acidified whole milk, I couldn’t resist attempting the recipe offered by the September 2008 issue of Saveur magazine. Promising “the sweet, earthy flavor of old-world ricotta,” their version requires only whole milk, cream, and rennet.

Just looking at the ingredient list raises red flags: cream? rennet?  Though producers of traditional ricotta might employ tricks to enrich the whey that goes into their ricotta, adding cream seems like gilding the lily.  True, Home Cheese Making does give the option of adding a small amount of cream to ricotta curds; I choose to omit it altogether.  

The cream I can write off as a matter of preference; the presence of rennet, however, really made me feel conflicted about the recipe.  In one ear, a little cheese angel whispered, “Don’t even think about it.  Real ricotta is coagulated only by acid!  Pick up some citric acid and leave the rennet in your refrigerator.”  But the little cheese devil’s case won me over: “You need to use that rennet anyway; its shelf life is only six months!  Besides, Saveur says it’s delicious, and no one will know it isn’t real ricotta.”  In totally (ahem) uncharacteristic fashion, the cheese devil triumphed.

For the record, Home Cheese Making contains no recipes in which rennet is used to coagulate uncultured milk.  Ripening milk with starter culture lowers the pH as lactose is converted to lactic acid, resulting in a predictable microbial population, enhanced flavor, more efficacious curd coagulation, and longer preservation of the cheese.  (While raw milk contains microbial populations that can act as culture, using such a method can produce inconsistent and even dangerous results.)  Because this recipe precludes ripening the milk, the finished cheese lacks acidity to preserve it.

Coagulation of the milk was quick and fool-proof when a teaspoon of rennet was added to a gallon of heated milk.  However, the resulting curd was loose and required an hour’s draining in cheesecloth before it resembled ricotta; forget dropping it straight in a basket.  It was like fromage blanc… but not as flavorful.

My highest praise for rennet-set ricotta is that it produces a high yield, over four cups of cheese from a gallon of milk.   We ate some with figs and honey, and the rest found its way into friends’ salads and lasagnas.  It wasn’t that I wanted to divest myself of the ricotta, but that I was racing the clock to use it: for reasons listed above, the cheese is meant to be consumed within three days.

I will continue to make ricotta at home, but I’ll save my rennet for other cheeses.  Until I develop the knack for making whey ricotta, whole milk ripened with any number of acids (lemon juice, buttermilk, citric acid) will do the job.  I’ll even give the recipes in Saveur another try… their Spuma di Ricotta al Caffe looks delicious.

Bert and Mateo sample a young wheel of Bartlett Blue
in the cellar at Jasper Hill Farm.

As I helped Leslie clean the empty buckets (wash, rinse, sanitize times twenty-six) from the morning’s production of Constant Bliss, Bert was working with the blue cheeses.  Jasper Hill Farm produces two at this time of year, Bayley Hazen Blue and the seasonal Barlett Blue.

Bartlett Blue is made only in the summer, when the farm’s herd of Ayrshire cows is in pasture.  The cheese is made from morning milk, which is cultured for about an hour before rennet is added at 6:30.  By 9 a.m., Bert was gently pressing on the surface of the curd, testing its consistency in preparation for the curd cut.

Bert reminded me of a surgeon as she approached the vat with her spotless curd knives set atop a cart.  She first used the vertical cutter, then the horizontal one, pulling them firmly and methodically through the curd mass.  Her goal was to produce uniform, 1″ cubes of curd, which is a challenge in a round vat (from what I can tell, she succeeded).  

We covered the vat and left it undisturbed for a couple of hours to acidify. However, a warm whey bath in darkness allows those naughty curds a chance to adhere to each other.  Like any chaperones, we needed to break up the party: in this case, Bert and I rolled up our sleeves, washed our arms up to the shoulder, and plunged in.  Following Bert’s direction, I kept my fingers together and waved my hand in a circular motion, using gentle waves of whey to separate the cubes of curd.  I worked along the edge and let her reach into the center of the 6′ diameter vat; Bert had already noted that her height was an advantage in jobs such as this.

That was the last I’d see of those Bartlett curds; after the stir and another rest, they would be drained, milled, molded, dried, and aged.  I have every reason to believe that they’ll grow up to be good cheeses (tear runs down my cheek).  Ahem.

When her attention wasn’t required by the Bartlett or some cleaning task, Bert returned to a batch of Bayley Hazen Blue on a stainless steel table.  The cheeses gathered on the far end appeared shaggy, bearing the mark of their recent unmolding.  Left in that rough state, the cheeses would develop thick, irregular rinds during aging.  Bert picked up each in turn, scraped its exterior with a knife, and set it among the smooth cylinders at the other end of the table.  When she’d finished, we transferred them to the other side of the room, flipping them upside-down to drain.

The previous day’s batch was drying nearby, waiting to be transported to the cellar for aging.  Burt washed, rinsed, and sanitized a three-tier cart, which was topped with an apparatus that resembled a coat hangar.  She loaded the dry wheels of Bayley onto the cart and wheeled it toward a trapdoor in the floor.  Cleverly, the cheese room accesses the cellar through this opening; Bert hooked the cart onto a hydraulic system and lowered it to the floor of the cellar.  

With Mateo, we took the long way to the cellar, which involved a change of shoes and a flight of stairs.  We washed up and entered the cool, humid space, passing between the cart of new Bayleys and wheels that were in various stages of rind development.  Mateo stopped beside shelves of weeks-old Bartlett Blue.  He selected a wheel, stuck in a small cheese trier, and pulled out a thin sample of cheese.  We each popped a bit into our mouths.  When I asked what we were tasting for, Mateo and Bert replied in unison, “Salt.”  To me, the sample seemed sandy, a little bitter, and yes, salty; apparently, the more experienced palates were able to divine the information they needed from that young cheese.

The cellar was filled with Jasper Hill Farm’s farmstead collection: briefly, Bliss, Winnie, Bayley and Bart. Their Aspenhurst was absent, as it is aged with a multitude of other cheeses in the state-of-the-art vault (post forthcoming).  However, I did see wheels of a new cheese that is in development, Moses Sleeping*.  Stay tuned.

*Jasper Hill Farm’s cheeses are named after historical people and places around Greensboro: Constant Bliss and Moses Sleeping were American scout in the Revolutionary War; Bayley Hazen Road was built for military use during the Revolutionary War, and is still in use; Aspenhurst and Winnimere are shores of the nearby Caspian Lake.

Mateo Kehler salts a batch of Constant Bliss cheese at Jasper Hill Farm
while Leslie ladles curd from another batch into molds.

 
Last week, I got away with Wonderful Husband Charles for a little road trip in Vermont.  We headed to the Lake Champlain area for some fun and relaxation, and we made a few cheese stops that I want to share. 

A couple of weeks before, I’d arranged a visit to Jasper Hill Farm. Mateo Kehler, head cheesemaker and one owner of the artisan cheese producer, told me that they’d be making Constant Bliss and Bartlett Blue.  His brother, Andy, the farm’s herd manager and co-owner, would be out of town.  It turns out that Andy is in London for a month-long stage at Neal’s Yard Dairy.

I looked forward to the visit with growing excitement for a variety of reasons.  I’d been introduced to the producer’s farmstead cheeses when I was a cheesemonger near Chicago.  Their cheeses were popular– so much so that I couldn’t even order their washed-rind Winnimere– and the explosive popularity of Cabot Clothbound Cheddar put them on the map as top-notch affineurs.  I read that the farm had received awards for having the highest quality milk in the state, and that they were expanding their aging facilities.  It seemed that every part of the organization was executed brilliantly– I had to visit!

And so, last Wednesday morning, Charles and I drove a scenic route into the Northeast Kingdom, ascending the mountains until we reached the hamlet of Greensboro.  We missed the farm’s entrance the first time, as there was no sign for it on the quiet, rural road; even addresses were hard to come by.  We pulled into the driveway, passed the barnful of Ayrshire dairy cows, and parked beside the tidy farmhouse that contains the office and cheese room of Jasper Hill Farm.  

I was welcomed by friendly staff, and upon entering the office, was directed to exchange my shoes for one of the many pairs of boots hanging against the wall.  No one wears outside shoes into the cheese room or aging facilities, the first of many sanitation measures that I would witness that day.  Duly booted, I donned a hair net and a plastic apron and entered the cheese room.  

Country music was playing in the bright, gleaming space, where daylight from many windows illuminated the white walls.  I met Mateo, who greeted me with a forearm-bump in lieu of shaking hands (told you they’re into sanitation).  He introduced me to Leslie, who was making that morning’s batch of Constant Bliss, an award-winning, soft-ripened cheese.  I was familiar with the snow-white, irregularly-shaped hunks; I’d sold them from their wooden crates of six, and a chef friend used them in his dinner party appetizers.  Observing the making of the cheese helped me understand what gives Constant Bliss its full flavor and distinctive acidity.

Mateo told me that Constant Bliss was developed to meet a specific goal: “We needed a cheese that we could make in a bucket,” he told me.  As their production has grown, the method of making Constant Bliss remains unchanged: evening milk is collected and cultured in a large vat, then divided into five-gallon buckets, rennet added to each.  The milk ripens overnight, setting to a custard-like consistency by morning.

It was at this stage that I found Leslie, positioned between a stack of twenty-six buckets and more than 300 perforated cups neatly arranged on a stainless steel table.  She grabbed a second bucket, handed me a ladle, and instructed me to discard the whey before filling the cups with curd.  We made several trips along the length of the table, filling and refilling the molds as the whey drained and the curd slowly sunk.  

The filled molds are set aside for a lengthy draining period.  Kept at about 80 F and flipped occasionally, the curd continues to release whey and to develop its acidity.  When the desired pH has been reached, it’s time for salting.

While I worked with Leslie, Mateo salted a previous batch of Constant Bliss.  From the racks in front of him, Mateo quickly selected a piece and, in a practiced motion, tossed and spun it as he shook a stream of salt from the shaker in his other hand.  When he’d finished, we headed down to the cellar of the building to check on other batches of Constant Bliss in various stages of ripening.

There they were, dozens of nonuniform chunks of Constant Bliss, looking like hand-formed lumps of white clay on their stacking racks. Some groups had patches of white fuzz developing; it will take a full 60 days before the cheeses are ready to leave the cellar and be shipped to cheese shops and restaurants around the country.

What could be a more appropriate culmination than eating a bit of Constant Bliss?  The quality and complexity of the farm’s raw milk is beautifully expressed in this well-crafted cheese. Biting into a slice of Constant Bliss, its buttery richness coats your tongue, even as a light acidic bite plays at the back of your palate. There’s almost a tingle at the roof of your mouth as the cheese awakens your taste buds, its resonance slowly fading until a lingering, clean flavor is all that remains.

Though I’d had the cheese many times before, sampling Constant Bliss directly from the cellar of Jasper Hill Farm was like a new experience. Whether it was a difference of perception in light of the preceding hours’ activities, or simply the pristine flavor of a cheese that had travelled a matter of yards in its whole existence, I can’t be certain. But I can tell you that the cheese is delicious.

Last week, an article in The New York Times praised the simplicity and versatility of fresh ricotta.  Several chefs declare that fresh ricotta can be profoundly delicious when served with a few intensely-flavored ingredients.  I had never considered ricotta to be a destination cheese, rather a quick stop on the journey of making lasagna, but I’d also never made my own.  My copy of Home Cheese Making in hand, I decided to follow the chefs’ advice to make a batch of ricotta.

Traditionally made from the leftover liquid of cheesemaking, true ricotta is a whey cheese.  The butterfat and casein (curd-producing protein) of the milk have gone into the first cheese, leaving albuminous proteins and a bit of lactose floating around in a lot of water.  Whey ricotta (ri cotta, “to cook again”) is produced by convincing those albuminous proteins that they want to be cheese, too.  This is rather tricky to do, and whey ricotta is a very low yield cheese: even the experts expect to produce only a cup or two of ricotta from two gallons of whey.  I have had very limited success producing ricotta from my mozzarella whey; however, the few curds I did manage to round up were quite tasty.  

The chefs in the NYT article either had whey ricotta flown in from Italy, or they made whole-milk ricotta in their kitchens.  Whole-milk ricotta eliminates the need for fresh whey (and a day of cheesemaking), and it offers a yield of up to two pounds of cheese per gallon of milk.  Raw milk may be used, because the high temperatures required to curdle albuminous protein also pasteurize the milk.  

The cheesemaking process is simple, the only special ingredient being citric acid, which I didn’t have.  I squeezed some fresh lemon juice into the milk, then heated it until it curdled around 180°F.  The curds formed more gradually than I expected, likely due to the lemon juice substitution, but they tasted fresh and sweet.  I will look for citric acid to try in future batches of ricotta; I’ve heard it can be found at the pharmacy.  I’ve also seen recipes that call for fresh buttermilk.

I drained the ricotta for only a few minutes, keeping its texture a little loose like cottage cheese.  We were surprised by the sweetness of the ricotta, which isn’t notable in the cheese from supermarket tubs.  Its sweetness foiled our appetizer of ricotta on garlic toast; however, I imagine that ricotta and tomato would make a toothsome bruschetta topping.

Though my savory applications of fresh ricotta need a little fine-tuning, the next morning’s breakfast combination was dead-on.  A dollop of ricotta on cinnamon-raisin Ezekiel bread with a drizzle of honey and scattering of walnuts… mmm, divine.

Toma is a semi-firm, natural rind, cow’s milk cheese.

Having tackled Camembert and Cheddar, the intrepid beginner cheesemakers set their sights on a semi-firm variety: Toma.  The family of Toma has members in every village of northern Italy; their ages and textures vary, but they’re all from the same thermophilic stock.  Our instructor, Jim Wallace, calls this version Vacha Toscano, because it’s made with cow’s milk in the Tuscan style. 

Toma is a highly customizable cheese because its optimal aging time is determined by the moisture content of its curd.  If you want to eat the cheese in three months, shoot for a quarter-inch curd size and stir it for twenty minutes before draining the whey.  If you can wait a year for the cheese to age, cut the curd smaller and stir it longer. 

By the way, you can throw in some dried herbs or peppercorns when molding the cheese.  Jim recommends whole peppercorns and smoked jalapenos.  We sampled a year-aged wheel studded with white peppercorns in the traditional pepato style.  
 
Now, if I could just get my hands on some ewe’s milk, I could make pecorino Toscano!