If you have been following my blog you would know by now that I am an immigrant and a parent, and as immigrant parents do, I tend to remind my kid how lucky we are to be here in the U.S.A. and to have the life that we have…even though he was born here, at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, in the shadow of the Beverly Center. He is eight years old now and I am certain that pretty soon I am going to lose my only audience to my one-woman show of “how life was when Mommy was growing up in the Philippines in the 70’s and 80’s.” My stories are almost always unrelatable to him because of the light years’ gap in our age and the modern world we live in. Our conversation last week was about milk, and how we should be thankful that milk is readily available to us when we want it. He gave me a puzzled look and, possibly, a slight eye-roll.
Two weeks ago, I taught one of my cooks how to make ricotta cheese by simply bringing the milk to a simmer and adding acid for it to curdle. A process so simple and yet so rewarding…homemade cheese! While we were doing this, I was reminded of the first time I made cheese. I might have been six years old at the most. Back then my grandmother still had unpasteurized cow’s or goat’s milk delivered to her house. The milk would come in a recycled family size Pepsi glass bottle corked with rolled fresh banana leaves, still warm from its natural source. It was in the seventies, but it might as well have been the 1800’s. Back then, pasteurized milk was unheard of in the Philippines. I grew up on powdered milk, and on special occasions, the fresh cow’s milk, which had to be boiled before consumed.
The only real cheese I had ever known as a child was a ball-shaped, semi-hard cheese we called queso de bola…also known as Edam (made in Holland). This cheese was a delicacy in the Philippines usually served with jamon and pandesal (a traditional Filipino roll) during the Christmas holiday. I don’t know why a Dutch cheese would become a traditional Filipino cheese (instead of something Spanish, like Mahon or Manchego), considering the Spaniards colonized the Philippines for hundreds of years. That didn’t matter. I looked forward to indulging on queso de bola every Christmas and New Year at my grandparents’ house. It was a real treat. All the other cheeses I knew as a kid were processed cheeses. Boy, did I love Velveeta and Cheese Whiz. Butter also didn’t exist in my life until I came to the U.S.A. I grew up on margarine!
So, I introduced homemade ricotta cheese to my team last week. The image of my six year old self and my mom’s youngest brother (who would have been in his late teens at that time), standing in front of the stove at my grandmother’s house came back to me so fast and so vividly. My uncle walked me through the process as he brought the goat’s milk to a boil, removed it from the heat, and added vinegar. He and I watched as the milk turned into curds. My uncle scooped the milk curds with a spoon, transferred it onto a plate, and seasoned it with a little salt and cracked black pepper. He warmed up some dinner rolls and we ate our freshly-made cheese with it. I could still taste the gaminess of the goat’s milk in that cheese, and I don’t think I liked it very much. But I loved that moment because it was with my uncle.
We served the house-made ricotta at the restaurant as a topper on our avocado toast, along with market beets and some orange. It was simply delicious. I was happy to show a new trick to a cook and he was proud to have an added skill in his toolbox.
I have come a long way from my time of unpasteurized milk in recycled Pepsi bottles. I now have all kinds of milks available to me…even the non-dairy ones! And my knowledge of cheese has since greatly improved. I especially love ripened French Brie and long-aged Gouda. But old habits are hard to break, as I still enjoy the occasional treat of processed cheese in my diet; it would be difficult to move away from it completely. Margarine has somehow completely disappeared from my life since I met butter. European butters and the ones speckled with black truffles have now also spoiled my palate, and as we all know there’s no going back to mediocre butter after that.
What inspires me about food and cooking? The answer is rooted deeply by these three things: my childhood, my family, and my grandmother’s kitchen. It’s a strong foundation no culinary schools could possibly match. I am grateful for all of it and milk, too.
Homemade Lemon Ricotta
Makes 2 cups
Ingredients
1/2 gallon of whole milk
1/3 cup lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
Instruction
Pour the milk into a 4-quart pot and set it over medium heat. Let it warm gradually to 200°F, monitoring the temperature with an instant read thermometer. The milk will get foamy and start to steam; remove it from heat if it starts to boil.
Remove the milk from heat. Pour in the lemon juice and the salt.
Let the pot of milk sit undisturbed for 15 minutes. The milk should have separated into clumps of milky white curds and thin, watery, yellow-colored whey. Add another tablespoon of lemon juice if it looks like there are still milk that hasn’t separated.
Set a fine strainer lined with cheesecloth over a bowl and pour the curds through the strainer. Let the curds drain about 20 to 40 minutes depending on how wet or dry you prefer your ricotta. You have now made ricotta cheese!
Tips:
Fresh ricotta can be used right away or refrigerated in an airtight container for up to a week.
You can flavor your ricotta before serving with chopped fresh herbs and spices. They go really well with toast and salads.
When serving creamy brie, let the cheese sit for 20 minutes or until it is at room temperature before serving to allow the cheese to soften a little bit and the flavors to bloom.
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