Recipe Simple white cheese

Morning Glory

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This produces a cheese similar to ricotta.

Ingredients:

2 litres/3½ pints whole milk (the creamier the milk, the creamier the cheese)
2 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar
1 tsp salt

Method:
Heat the milk in a pan until it is almost boiling.
Remove from the heat, add the salt, vinegar or lemon juice and and stir gently. You will see curds starting to form.
Line a colander with a large piece of dampened muslin or cheesecloth and place over a larger bowl or pan. Spoon the curds into the colander and allow to drain for an hour or so (or you can hang the muslin from a tap over the sink). I use a jam strainer. After an hour, lift the muslin up by the corners and twist tightly to drain. The cheese is now ready.

You can add any other seasonings you wish at this stage - such as garlic and chives etc.
 
Thanks for the recipie. I will try this. Could you and have you used this in lasagna or something similar to this? Ricotta cheese is fairly expensive in stores, and I am thinking this homemade cheese might be good in a lasagna type dish. It would be fun to make your own cheese, and tasty too I bet. I have seen cooks make a mozzarella cheese on TV.
 
Thanks for the recipie. I will try this. Could you and have you used this in lasagna or something similar to this? Ricotta cheese is fairly expensive in stores, and I am thinking this homemade cheese might be good in a lasagna type dish. It would be fun to make your own cheese, and tasty too I bet. I have seen cooks make a mozzarella cheese on TV.
Do you put ricotta in lasagne? I've never come across it :scratchhead:. You can certainly use it in pasta dishes; the classic spinach and ricotta tortellini, for example, but you would need to make your own pasta dough for that. Or it could be used in a simple pasta bake, like this :http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/spinach-ricotta-cannelloni/#BSe7SFcmxtVIS9Dc.97

However, I don't think its so very cheap compared to shop bought. It depends how much you pay for the milk where you are and how expensive ricotta is (don't know which country you are in! Please add it to your picture? Go to @SatNavSaysStraightOn's post in the Lounge to see how!). The recipe uses quite a lot of milk to produce quite a small amount of cheese. I don't know if its really cost effective, But it is fun and easy and impresses people no end! :happy:
 
I have never attempted to make cheese myself and thought it would be complicated. However, I was reading through one of my Indian cookbooks the other day and saw a recipe similar to this. I have been meaning to give it a go ever since.
 
I have never attempted to make cheese myself and thought it would be complicated. However, I was reading through one of my Indian cookbooks the other day and saw a recipe similar to this. I have been meaning to give it a go ever since.
Absolutely. That would be paneer. Its very much the same. Do try it! The kids will be impressed.
 
This definitely sounds doable, thanks @morning glory for the recipe. What happens to the liquid, do you toss it when the curds have drained, or use it for something else? I use ricotta in my lasagna too, what do you use? Some here use cottage cheese, but I'd never heard of that until moving here. Would half and half be better than whole milk? That's usually what I have on hand. I've heard of paneer, but have never tried it, I'd like to see how that recipe differs from this one.
 
This definitely sounds doable, thanks @morning glory for the recipe. What happens to the liquid, do you toss it when the curds have drained, or use it for something else? I use ricotta in my lasagna too, what do you use? Some here use cottage cheese, but I'd never heard of that until moving here. Would half and half be better than whole milk? That's usually what I have on hand. I've heard of paneer, but have never tried it, I'd like to see how that recipe differs from this one.

Well the classic Italian lasagne recipe uses layers of lasagne pasta, ragu, béchamel sauce and parmesan. But having looked it up, I can see that there are American recipes which use ricotta in place of béchamel. We don't tend to do that in the UK but I may try it!

Yes, you could use half and half or heavy cream but that will make the cheese more expensive, I think. You could use a mixture of milk and cream. You can also make cheese from plain yoghurt. In which case you don't add the vinegar/lemon juice but simply suspend it in (overnight is easiest) in the cheesecloth to let the whey drip off.

There are plenty of uses for whey. Its easier to give you this link than explain them all myself! I tend to use it in bread-making.
http://dontwastethecrumbs.com/2014/05/36-ways-to-use-whey-and-5-ways-to-make-it/
 
I've heard of paneer, but have never tried it, I'd like to see how that recipe differs from this one.

Its basically the same recipe. The main difference is that when the cheese is drained and thoroughly 'wrung out' in the cheesecloth, it is then weighted for several hours until it forms a denser texture which can be cut into cubes and added to curry dishes, for example.
 
@morning glory Thanks, I've bookmarked that. I'd love to get back to more natural cooking/eating when I'm able. Hopefully I'll have some time to read it over, and educate myself on the subject. The paneer sounds interesting, also. Maybe the reason we use ricotta is because we have so many Italians. That's where we learned to make our lasagna, manicotti, etc. Half of my aunts and uncles married Italians, and I had many Italian friends also, so we were pretty much immersed in the culture.
 
@morning glory Thanks, I've bookmarked that. I'd love to get back to more natural cooking/eating when I'm able. Hopefully I'll have some time to read it over, and educate myself on the subject. The paneer sounds interesting, also. Maybe the reason we use ricotta is because we have so many Italians. That's where we learned to make our lasagna, manicotti, etc. Half of my aunts and uncles married Italians, and I had many Italian friends also, so we were pretty much immersed in the culture.
I don't know about the ricotta in lasagne being an Italian thing in America. But, as far as I'm aware, in Italy lasagne is almost never made with ricotta. It may be that Italians who migrated to the States developed a different way of making it with ricotta, for some reason. It might be interesting to discuss this with your Italian friends & relatives! Here is a quote from an Italian commenting on a recipe for Classic Italian Lasagne:

Wow, finally someone who doesn’t use cottage cheese or ricotta in their lasagne!
When I moved to the States I was really surprised seeing that besciamella was replaced by *ugh* cottage cheese. It takes away so much of the original lasagne taste and no one would put that in their food in Italy (most people never ate cottage cheese in their entire lives, let alone putting it in everybody’s all-time favourite dish!)…

And here is another quote from an Italian who moved to America in 2001:
Lasagna is typically a home-made dish, which pretty much any common soul is able to make. Ricotta cheese, mozzarella, and plain tomato sauce DO NOT GO in lasagna. Ok, I'll give you that in some areas in Southern Italy ricotta is used, but most Italians use "besciamella" (white sauce) and "ragu" (a meat-based bolognese sauce) instead. Check out the original recipe here (warning: it's in Italian!) http://ricette.giallozafferano.it/Lasagne-alla-Bolognese.html
 
I am thankful for this. I have always wanted to make cheese or maybe it's just that cheese related things interest me. The ingredients are simple enough, I just have to see if I can work with the method. Sometimes it's the method that kills everything for me. Thanks anyway. I shall keep this handy.
 
I don't know about the ricotta in lasagne being an Italian thing in America. But, as far as I'm aware, in Italy lasagne is almost never made with ricotta. It may be that Italians who migrated to the States developed a different way of making it with ricotta, for some reason. It might be interesting to discuss this with your Italian friends & relatives! Here is a quote from an Italian commenting on a recipe for Classic Italian Lasagne:



And here is another quote from an Italian who moved to America in 2001:

Maybe it is Italian-Americans, versus actual Italians in America, or perhaps it's the region they came from. My Italian relatives who would be able to answer are all dead, so no way to ask. I'm going to assume it's a regional thing, since they used relatives' recipes, and the relatives were straight off the boat.
 
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