Happy Spring! Lemon and Ricotta Muffins Recipe

Spring is the time of plans and projects

Leo Tolstoy

It’s finally March! For us that means there are warmer, brighter, lovelier days ahead. And astronomically speaking, the beginning of Spring on 20 March. Thanks to a couple of unseasonably warm days earlier in the week, our Spring bulbs have made their move from their winter hiding places under the soil, straight up into the light above. The daffodils are flowering in our window boxes, ushering in the new season with their tall stems and smiley faces. 

Throughout March, according to my copy of Food For Free, we’ll be foraging for hop shoots, jack-by-the-hedge, morel, nettle, sweet violet and velvet shank. I’m looking forward to making nettle pesto, and bright green nettle pasta. I’m also hoping the tiny sweet violet plants in our courtyard and the hedgerows around Segur will flower, so that I can perhaps make some crystallised sweet violet flowers, as featured here. So pretty, and oh so fancy!   

But as well as foraging, March is the time to begin planting seedlings inside. At our house we’re focusing on stripy heirloom beets, basil, and red and yellow cherry tomatoes. In homage to the season ahead, and the bright light and excitement it brings, I made these lemon and ricotta muffins. The citrus zing and their yellowy colour reminds me of all the things I love about this time of year. I hope you like them. Here’s the recipe:

Recipe

(Makes 12 muffins)

2 cups plain flour

½ cup raw cane sugar

1 cup fresh ricotta cheese

1/3 cup milk

2 eggs

6 tablespoons butter

Zest of 2 large lemons

2 tea spoons baking powder

Two spoons fine white sugar (for sprinkling on top of the muffins)

½ tea spoon salt

Step One: Preheat the oven to 200C. Grease the muffin tin.

Step Two: Mix the dry ingredients (flour, cane sugar, baking powder and salt) in a large bowl.

Step Three: Mix the wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Whisk the ricotta, milk, melted butter, eggs and most of the lemon zest (holding some back to top the muffins).  

 

Step Four: In the large bowl, make a well in the dry ingredients, and pour in the wet. Stir gently until mixed. Pour the ingredients into the muffin tray. 

Step Five: Top each muffin with fine sugar and lemon zest. Bake for 20-25 minutes. When the muffins are done, the tops will be golden. Dip a fork in to one muffin to check. If it come comes out clean the muffins are cooked.  

Et voila, enjoy with tea in the sunshine! 

Ricotta Gnudi with Brown Butter and Burned Sage Recipe

Last week I made ricotta for the first time, and nearly fell over when I realised how simple it is! Since then I’ve been putting my homemade cheese through its paces. Eating it on pizza with caramelised onions, swirling into tomato based pasta, and making gnudi...

I first tasted gnudi in November 2011 at the Alesbury in Melbourne. Quite frankly I was taken aback. The dish brought an immediate tear to my eye, as I mentioned in a post around this time. And it wasn’t just me, Kate, a friend who was sharing the dish also shed a tear out of pure delight for the taste of this light, fluffy pillow of ricotta, enriched with parmesan and lemon and served with olive oil, ground black pepper and green beans.

I have to confess, at the time, although I wanted to run into the kitchen and kiss the chef, I hadn’t even considered that he or she also probably made the ricotta. Given making ricotta takes only a few minutes, it seems obvious now. 

Before embarking on making gnudi with my own ricotta, I did a little research. Gnudi means naked in Italian and gnudi are described by some as ravioli filling without the pasta. If you avoid carbs (I don’t) this is good news. They look like gnocchi in shape and form. But the truth is gnudi are much more than that ricotta filling or gnocchi. Done well they are cloudlike, but also rich and perfectly contained in a crisp outer shell that oozes ricotta when one bites into it. 

Gnudi were made quite famous in 2008 by the Spotted Pig in New York City, subsequently doing the round of the food blogs. It took me until 2011 to taste them and 2012 to actually make them, but the wait was worth it. Gnudi make a delightful dish, that’s sophistication belies its simplicity. They can also be made ahead, and in fact are better made three days ahead, allowing the outer “shell” to sure in the refrigerator, and allowing them to be boiled without risk of crumbling.

I followed a basic recipe by Z Tasty Lifestyle, making a few tweaks as I went. Here’s the recipe:

Recipe

500gms fresh ricotta (http://www.segur-le-chateau.blogspot.com/2012/02/homemade-ricotta-cheese-recipe.html)

1/2 cup finely grated parmegiano-reggiano

Juice of 1 lemon

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

2 cups semolina flour

4 tablespoons butter

Small bunch of sage

Step One: Mix the ricotta, parmigiano and lemon juice in a bowl and season

.

Step Two: Line a plate with half of the semolina. 

Step Three: Using two teaspoons spoon out the ricotta and shape into small gnocchi shaped dumplings. Drop into the semolina flour. Once you’ve formed all of the gnudi, that is used all of the ricotta, cover the gnudi with the remaining semolina. Refrigerate for between 1 and 3 days, the longer the better.  

Step Four: Heat a pan and brown the butter. While the butter is browning, fry off the sage leaves in it and drain them on a paper towel.  

Step Five: Boil a small pot of salted water and gently drop in the gnudi. They’ll sink at first, but will float after a few minutes, indicating they are cooked. Gently remove the gnudi, drain them and place them on a plate. Top with the fried sage and finish with the browned butter. 

Et voila, enjoy!  

Homemade Ricotta Cheese Recipe

Today, for the first time, I made ricotta cheese. That’s right, from scratch. Sounds a little fancy for a Wednesday afternoon activity doesn’t it? But as it turns out, making ricotta is about as simple as making porridge. It involves stirring two ingredients, followed by straining. Et voila! No more. A monkey could probably do it. 

The inspiration for making ricotta was derived from my recently purchased copy of Mark Bittman’s book How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. It’s a book I came into contact with when staying with my friend Alice in Munich. At first I was slightly disturbed – it doesn’t include any pictures. I’m a visual creature and most of my cookbooks are filled with mouth-watering images of dishes. I soon realised however that Bittman’s tome is akin to an encyclopaedia covering everything from making bread, to pasta, and (to my surprise) cheese. I bought a copy as soon as I could, and have been reading it for the last couple of weeks.    

Ricotta is a huge part of Italian cuisine, and Italian cuisine is very influential in Australia. Partly because of this, and partly because at the age of thirteen I promptly announced I was a vegetarian, spinach and ricotta cannelloni was on weekly rotation at my house. We used store bought ricotta, and until I read Bittman’s book, I had not actually considered making fresh cheese.  

Traditionally ricotta can be made with sheep, goat, cow, or buffalo milk, but most store bought varieties are made of cow’s milk. It’s also technically a curd, as opposed to a cheese, as it’s made from whey. In Segur le Chateau, our petit epcierie sells local fresh goat’s cheese, which I now realise may be made in a similar way to ricotta. I need to look into that!

Ricotta takes on the taste of the milk that it is made with, so it’s wise to source milk that is as fresh as possible. I asked Kristoph if he’d consider buying me a cow and milking it. He declined. We agreed we’d keep our ear out for fresh milk sources from nearby farms. In the meantime I settled with an organic, whole, cow’s milk.  

Here’s the very simple recipe:

Recipe:

Note – you will need some muslin or cheesecloth to use for straining.

2L whole milk

2 cups buttermilk

Sea salt

Step 1: On a medium to high setting, heat the milk in a heavy bottom pot for 10-15 minutes until the milk bubbles up the sides. Stir it occasionally to prevent the milk from scorching.  

Step 2: Add the buttermilk to the boiling milk and stir. Like magic the curds will separate from the whey. Once separated remove from the heat and stir in a pinch of sea salt.

  

Step 3: Strain the mixture through a muslin cloth over a strainer. The curds will collect at the bottom and the whey will drain off. Leave for between 30 and 60 minutes depending on how dry you would like the ricotta. The longer you leave it the drier it will become. 

Step 4: Eat right away, or scoop into a sealed container and refrigerate. Use wthin 3-4 days. 

 

So this week I am focusing on developing my ricotta making skills, and experimenting with ricotta-based recipes. In  the next couple of days I’ll be posting on my take on ricotta gnudi with sage and brown butter, and then moving on to baked ricotta.

Do you have any favourite ricotta-based dishes? If so, please do let me know in the comments box below. I’d love to read your ideas, and to try more savoury and sweet ricotta dishes.

Ricotta and parsley stuffed artichokes

"After all the trouble you go to, you get about as much actual "food" out of eating an artichoke as you would from licking 30 or 40 postage stamps." - Miss Piggy

True enough. But the small amount of edible artichoke heart you find in each artichoke is delicious. And, globe artichokes are beautiful to look at. As a result, when I passed them recently at our local market, they soon found their way to the centre of the dining table.

 

Artichokes are actually a thistle. Globe artichokes are picked before they flower, but the flower buds are inside the artichoke. Referred to as the choke, this part is inedible and needs to be removed. For advice on preparing artichokes, including a demonstration on how to remove the choke and the inedible outer leaves, see You Tube.

Once the artichokes are prepared, there is very little work in this dish. It’s fresh and simple. It would make the perfect lunch, side dish, or entree, at a dinner party.  

Recipe

(serves two)

4 globe artichokes

4 tablespoons fresh ricotta

Juice of once lemon

Handful of chopped parsley

Ground black pepper

Olive oil

2 cloves garlic (I used smoked garlic, but you can also use unsmoked)  

Step 1. Prepare the artichokes, removing the outside leaves and the choke. Rub with lemon juice once they are prepared, to prevent from browning. Cut the artichokes in half and lay on a roasting tray. Drizzle with olive oil generously. Roast at 180C for 10mins, with the grill on if possible.

Step 2. While the artichokes are roasting, mix the ricotta, finely chopped parsley, lemon juice, and chopped garlic in a bowl.   

Step 3. Remove the artichokes from the oven. The artichokes will hve begun to chargrill, with the thin leaves darkening. 

Step 4: Spoon the ricotta mixture into each artichoke half, dividing evenly among the segments. Add another generous drizzle of olive oil. Place back under the grill for 10 minutes.