Warm Ricotta with Olive Oil and Lemon Zest - Kelsey

I had to make this twice. The first time was a complete failure. Sorry Kenji.

His recipe intends for you to use the microwave but I was doubling the recipe and did not want to put half a gallon of milk in there. His recipe also mentions stovetop so I opted for that.

Your supposed to mix everything at once. Milk, salt, lemon juice.

Then you heat it slowly up to 165F. 

 

You can see on the spurtle that there are a few curds. I was hopeful. 

My dad pulled a clip out of nowhere so that didn't have to hold the thermometer off the bottom of the pan.

Now I had done a teensy bit of googling about making ricotta before I started. I saw that 175F is a better temperature so I thought I would split the difference and go to 170F. I knew it hadn't worked by the time I pulled it off the heat because you are immediately supposed to drain. The curds should have formed but they hadn't.

Mariam asked her mom. I did some more googling. I figured out what I would change. So I went back to the store today to get another half gallon of milk. I checked the label to make sure it wasn't ultra-pasteurized. 

I don't even know if I can say I made Kenji's recipe because the process was entirely different (how different can a two step process be lol). 

This time I didn't add the lemon juice in the beginning.

I brought the milk up to 190F. Took it off the heat, then added lemon juice.

Quick mix and let it sit a few minutes. The curds started forming immediately.

Let it drain for 30 minutes with 3 layers of cheese cloth.

And you have ricotta! You can adjust the draining time depending on what texture you want it. I set 1 cup aside to make lemon ricotta pancakes this weekend.

And with the rest I made the Warm Ricotta with Olive Oil and Lemon Zest (sans lemon zest). 

Small drizzle of oil, freshly cracked black pepper, and some Maldon salt. Delish. So creamy. The olive oil flavor was a bit overpowering but it was good. I skipped lemon zest because I used lemon juice instead of white vinegar to make the ricotta and because I didn't want to zest a lemon.