This post was supposed to be about Lebanon’s most famous salad Tabbouleh. But you needs a lot of flat leaf parsley for it and I have this pet hate for buying herbs from retailers when I know full well I can grow them myself. So the Tabbouleh post has been delayed until I can harvest 300g of parsley.
Which brings me to this wonderful homemade ricotta. I saw a photo on the Donna Hay magazine’s Instagram feed of bruschetta with a creamy ricotta topping. When we visited Franschhoek in December, Chef Pieter of Leopard’s Leap made his own ricotta and at the time Sam Linsell told me she regularly makes her own ricotta, so I set about finding a recipe. I managed to track down a Donna Hay recipe on Sam’s blog and here are the delicious results.
It is such a simple recipe to make and the result is quite fantastic. So much so that I doubt I will buy ricotta again. One litre of milk and cream yields about a cup of cheese so amend the recipe if you need more for a cake or pie. I did not read the recipe properly (regular occurrence) and bought single cream in stead of double cream. The curds were quite small but I don’t think it made much a difference to the end result – perhaps just less creamier but was very tasty.
Served on some toasted sour dough with a drizzle of good quality extra virgin olive oil, a few flakes of sea salt and a grinding of black pepper makes for a lovely snack or as part of a meze platter. You could of course sweeten it up with a drizzle of honey alongside a cup of tea.
And talking about honey, my first food video is up! I collaborated with Caro de Waal of EatDesign at the end of last year on some photographs and towards the end of our day we filmed a short video primarily to use on Instagram. We liked it and though it was cool but fell really in love with it after Eden Weiss edited it for us. I have decided it should not stay on just Instagram so here it is!
Postscript: It was pointed out to me on Instagram that I can not call this Ricotta as this is not the way Ricotta is made. Since I have distributed this post on all my social media platforms already I am keeping the title as is but it should rather read Fresh Curd Cheese. Here is an explanation of how Ricotta is made : http://munchies.vice.com/articles/its-time-to-call-bs-on-house-made-ricotta

Homemade Ricotta
Ingredients
- 750 ml full cream milk
- 250 ml double cream
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
Instructions
- Line a sieve with a piece of muslin cloth and set this over a large and deep bowl.
- In a heavy base pot pour the milk, cream and salt and bring it to the boil while stirring constantly. As it just starts to come to the boil, add the lemon juice and reduce the heat and allow it to simmer for about 2 minutes.
- Remove the pot from the heat and let it stand at room temperature for 15 minutes.
- Strain it in the sieve and let it stand for 1 hour.
- Scrape the ricotta out of the cloth and place in an airtight container in the fridge for not longer than 3 days.
- Adapted from Donna Hay
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Caro de Waal
Jan 12, 2015
Just beautiful cheese and a sweeeeeet video.
Hande
Jan 12, 2015
You are awesome.
hein
Jan 13, 2015
Thanks for the info Hande!
Ami@NaiveCookCooks
Jan 12, 2015
Haha I am same like you as I always delay buying herbs for recipes thinking I can so easily and cheaply grow them! But that day never comes for me which is another story!!
This ricotta, I have been wanting to make ricotta for sometime now but never reached there yet!! So doing it now!
hein
Jan 13, 2015
I have my parsley farm going Ami so let’s see if there is any success! Pleased you will be making the cheese – let me know what you thought.
Thalia @ butter and brioche
Jan 13, 2015
I have to admit I’ve never made ricotta from scratch before.. this is definitely something I’m inspired to try now!
hein
Jan 13, 2015
Great Thalia. And please bake something magnificent with it!
Cindy
Jun 18, 2015
Is full cream milk aka whole milk?
hein
Jun 18, 2015
Hello Cindy, yes it is
Gourmet Egg Toastie – Honest Cooking
Nov 25, 2017
[…] salmon. A vegetarian option would be serving it with some smashed avocado and a dollop of homemade ricotta or labneh. The options are really endless. […]