What happens if you add the ricotta to the curds?
Posted: 29 August 2013 08:50 AM   [ Ignore ]
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The whey from the last couple of cheeses I’ve made has produced quite a bit of ricotta. Ricotta is OK, but I don’t really need so much; what I want is good yummy hard cheese.
So I got to thinking; what would happen if I made the ricotta while the curds were cheddaring, and mixed the ricotta in with the curds together with the salt, before pressing? Has anyone tried it? Would it make a new breed of cheese?

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Posted: 30 August 2013 07:53 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 1 ]
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Sounds like a really good thing to try.  I have no clue how it will turn out; but it will be interesting.  Especially if the cheddar is colored and the ricotta is not.  It may even help the cheddar to knit together more easily.  The only problem I can see is coming up with a name for it.  The only things that come to mind are ricoddar or cheddotta.  Let us know how it turns out.

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Posted: 01 September 2013 04:26 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 2 ]
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Would be interesting to try. other then that you can use it to add to omelets, baking soups.

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The Cheese Hole

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Posted: 01 September 2013 11:30 PM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 3 ]
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It’s such a simple and to me obvious idea, I can’t believe it hasn’t been tried before; but the absence of either ricoddar or cheddotta on the supermarket shelf next to or instead of the cheddar suggests that there’s a basic flaw in the idea somewhere - for some reason it doesn’t produce a viable/palatable/worthwhile cheese. Still, I think I’d like to give it a try at some point, perhaps with just a few litres of milk, to see what happens. We had ricotta in a veggie lasagne last week which was very nice, but getting more hard cheese out of the same amount of milk, if possible, would be even nicer. Add another item to my rapidly-growing list of Cheeses I Intend to Make!

I thought the idea of having curds and ricotta of different colours was good, but I think it would have to be the ricotta that was coloured; if I added colouring to the curds, the ricotta would also be coloured… wouldn’t it? The ricotta I had from my creamy-yellow cheddar was a kind of off-white colour. Maybe I could add beetroot juice or wine or spinach/sage juice to the ricotta…now the one project has turned into 4 projects….I gotta stop thinking, and start doing!

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Posted: 02 September 2013 05:12 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 4 ]
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Have you considered taking a few batches of ricotta and pressing it?  Likely it would be a very dry cheese; but it might make a really good grating cheese.

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Posted: 02 September 2013 09:51 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 5 ]
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I don’t think I make cheese often enough to save up batches of ricotta (I pace myself by not allowing me to make new cheese while there’s still whey left from the last lot), but when a 16l make produces around 500 gm of ricotta, I suppose I could press that…now I’ve got yet another project!

Help! wink

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Posted: 03 September 2013 09:32 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 6 ]
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The whey is ofter used to feed farm stock to enrich their diet.

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Posted: 03 September 2013 10:00 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 7 ]
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No farm stock to feed, just the dog (the cat won’t touch it) and TLOML who appears to have been a cat in a previous life. I use the whey in cooking and baking, make lemonade, give it to the dog….still takes a while to get through it all.

Just as well really I suppose, otherwise I’d be spending whey too much time making cheese!

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Posted: 03 September 2013 11:48 AM   [ Ignore ]   [ # 8 ]
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LOL
Still best way is to incorporate it into your cooking, or start selling at a farmers market smile

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