Tag Archives: ricotta

Easy peasy no churn ricotta ice cream

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I made ricotta ice cream years ago, following a David Lebovitz recipe. It was perfectly nice but not entirely ricotta-y enough for me and also, all those egg yolks.

So I tried something else and it worked really well. This ice cream is absolutely wonderful about 12 hours after making it and it keeps well in the freezer for days, but nothing beats the consistency when it’s ‘just’ made.

You need:

500g of standard supermarket ricotta

A tin of 397g condensed milk (preferably not Nestlé)

225-250 ml of double cream (I use the Yeo Valley 227g organic cream pot)

The finely grated zest of a preferably organic orange (organic so it doesn’t have loads of crap chemicals). You could also of course use lemon but I wanted orange here..

This is what you do:

You mix the ricotta with the condensed milk and the orange zest. Separately you whip the cream until soft peaks form. You gently fold the whipped cream into the condensed milk/rind/ricotta mixture.

Er that’s it. Then you put it in a suitable container and freeze it. If you make it quite early in the morning you’ll have a quite wonderfully tasting dessert for the evening or even before.

Pea, avocado and ricotta hot cakes (with or without poached eggs)

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These are my new favourite thing. You might be able to tell this as there is no photo of the product all plated up, because I was too busy eating.

The original recipe is from Waitrose magazine (I’ve slightly adapted it) and it serves four. But you can easily make these for fewer and keep leftovers in the fridge (20seconds zap in microwave) for a really quick, tasty and nutritious lunch. They are much more filling than they seem as there’s a lot of protein and good fats in there (okay so the ricotta may not be the best fat you can get but come on).

You need:

110g frozen garden peas

250g ricotta

Half an avocado for the hot cake mixture, more for serving it with – as you like

100g self-raising flour, you can go part or whole wholemeal if you like

3 eggs, separated, but not for long

about 3 tablespoons of olive oil for the frying

Peashoots/avocado to serve.

The recipe shows this with poached eggs, which is how we had it, but I had the hot cakes warmed up two days later with just avocado for a super fast lunch (from conception to partial digestion in under four minutes as I had an interview to do). You can of course serve these with whatever you want and I can’t help thinking they’d make a good breakfast.

This is what you do:

Put a pan of water onto boil, when boiling add the peas and simmer for two minutes. Drain and cool under cold water. Tip into a food processor with the ricotta, half an avocado, flour and three of the egg yolks. Whizz up, season.

Separately, whisk up the 3 egg whites until stiff, then fold into the pea/ricotta mixture.

Put a large frying pan on with some oil (you will need to do these in batches unless your pan is huge). You use one or two large dollops per cake – see how you go. Cook for about two mins. Unlike almost evert-other-thing I make like this, when you turn them the underside has actually set and doesn’t stick (or mine didn’t) and I didn’t have to chase it round the pan and end up crying.

Flip (it may swidge a bit) and cook until the other side is done – I mean this is obvious right?. Keep warm whilst you make the rest.

That’s it. Serve, as above, with poached eggs, avocado and peashoots.

Baked ricotta and sweet potato salad

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This is so delicious that I started eating it and then remembered I hadn’t photographed it which is why it’s half eaten. But it looks very good when first assembled and will appeal to those who like prettiness on a plate.
 
 
If I had tons of money, one of the things I’d do is hire a chef. Someone to make wonderful little delicate salads for me. I love salads. I’m not talking limp lettuce with enough vinegar to make your hair shine, I’m talking big, blousey salads with lotsa things in them.
 
The problem is I don’t always feel like making them. Since my first pregnancy, sometimes preparing a salad can make me feel a bit sick. I have to do it before hunger makes me stupid, so a bit of pre-planning is required.
 
I’m hugely fortunate, but utterly deserving, because my partner is a fantastic cook, and I can sometimes boss him into making me a delicious salad, giving him the above reason/excuse and it seems to work. Despite me telling you all this, I’ve got quite a salad repertoire and this is one of them. It’s from Peter Gordon’s Salads. I think Gordon (The Sugar Club, The Providores) is hugely underrated by the at-home cook. I love Salads – published in 2005 – because Gordon proves that a proper salad can be a meal in its own right, not just an add-on to lessen the guilt.
 
The recipe below can withstand a lot of tweaking, so if as you make it you think “I can’t possibly eat this much spinach” then don’t put so much in. I found 400g waaaaay too much and only used about 150g. Don’t know if it’s a typo but see how you get on. I’ve reproduced the recipe here the way he printed it however.
 
Here’s what you need for four worthy people:
 
400g ricotta
half a teaspoon smoked sweet paprika
quarter of a spoon of cumin seeds – leave them as they are no need to crush
quarter of a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
 
600g sweet potatoes, Gordon says to scrub their skins, I peeled mine cos I didn’t read that bit
4 tablespoons of hot water
300g grapes off the stems. He doesn’t specify which, I used red seedless. You’d be insane to use seeded ones unless you want your guests to be spitting all over lunch.
2 tablespoons pomegranate molasses (I got mine from a food market)
3 table spoons of grapeseed oil (I used a mixture of olive and rapeseed)
1 teaspoon soy sauce
2 handfuls of olives, stoned and roughly chopped
2 tablespoons of baby capers, rinsed
12 mint leaves, shredded
2 tablespoons thinly sliced chives
400g baby spinach (see above)
 
First you preheat the oven to 180. Line a baking tray with baking parchment and then slice the ricotta into 2cm pieces. Don’t worry if it crumbles a bit. I sliced mine whilst still  in its little round container, and then lifted it out, and it worked fine. Mix the paprika, cumin and cinnamon together with a teaspoon of the olive oil and brush this on the cheese. Sprinkle with sea salt and cook for 15 mins. Take out and leave to one side to cool.
 
Turn the oven up to 200C.
You’re now going to cook the sweet potatoes and grapes together, so pick two containers that will fit side by side. If you don’t have, don’t fret. This salad is served at room temperature so you can just cook one at a time. I’d probably do the grapes first.
 
So, cut the sweet pots into thin wedges and place in a small roasting tin. Pour in the hot water, season with salt and pepper and drizzle over the remaining olive oil. I know it sounds mad but just do it. Bake until just cooked – about 20 mins.
 
Place the grapes in a non-reactive dish and pour on the pomegranate molasses, grapeseed/other oil you’re using and soy sauce. Bake for 20 mins. Remove when done and leave to cool.
 
Once everything is at room temperature, pour the juice from the cooked grapes into a bowl and mix in the olives, capers, mint and chives to form the dressing.
 
To serve, toss the spinach with half the dressing and place on four plates. Scatter the sweet potato wedges on top, then flake the ricotta on top of that. Scatter over the grapes then pour the rest of the dressing over the top.
 
Eat. You will enjoy it.