Ricotta

• By Matty Cremona

Tradition has it that Sicily is where ricotta was first made, and unsurprisingly, it is a key ingredient of many Sicilian dishes and sweets, like sfince and the famous cassata. In Modica, fresh ricotta is eaten as is, with a spoon. In the home-cum-workshop of Marta Lemmolo, we saw it being made in the kitchens in the old manner, and then ate it warm from the pot, with bread straight from the oven. Marta has been making ricotta from cows’ milk – the cows are in a pen a few metres away – since childhood, and she moves from vat to trough with the practised ease of one who can work blindfolded. She routinely holds ‘ricotta-eating’ parties for up to 100 enthusiasts who come from all over Sicily, and makes everything herself – ravioli, sweetened ravioli cooked by shallow frying, pots of fresh ricotta, bread. And she carries on smiling.

Ricotta was an innovation born of thrift. It uses the last bit of protein that can be extracted from the whey left behind after cheese is made. The rennet – or caglio - traditionally used to set cheese comes from the stomach of a milk-fed lamb. One stomach sets around 500 litres of milk. The stomach is stored in salt for a year, then a slit is cut in it and the preserved solids are removed, dissolved in water and used to make cheese and ricotta. Marta has a lamb-stomach floating in a jar, an object of morbid curiosity to us all.

Ricotta was an innovation born of thrift. It uses the last bit of protein that can be extracted from the whey left behind after cheese is made. The rennet – or caglio - traditionally used to set cheese comes from the stomach of a milk-fed lamb. One stomach sets around 500 litres of milk. The stomach is stored in salt for a year, then a slit is cut in it and the preserved solids are removed, dissolved in water and used to make cheese and ricotta. Marta has a lamb-stomach floating in a jar, an object of morbid curiosity to us all.

She pours whole milk into a tub and heats it to 36C. She adds the caglio, stirs it with a wooden pole and leaves it for an hour. Jugs of boiling water are added to the setting milk – 20 per cent milk and the rest, water. Then the cauldron is hauled onto the wood-fired stove using a simple mechanical hoist, and 800g of salt is put in. Marta continues to stir, using a pole with a brush on the end, so that nothing sticks to the bottom. The first cheese produced from this mixture is tuma, which is hard and sometimes flavoured with chilli, saffron and herbs or spices. The whey left behind is then cooked to make ricotta – hence the name, which means ‘recooked’.

Marta stirs together 100 litres of whey, a kilo of salt, 10 litres of whole milk and some rennet in the vast copper cauldron on the stove. She recites a ‘spell’, encouraging the curds to rise. At the point of coagulation, she calls out “e questa e la ricotta!”, and skims off the foam, making the sign of the cross. Small baskets called cavagna – they used to be made of wicker but are now a more hygienic plastic – are filled using an a ladle called a cazza – those with a good knowledge of Italian can use their imagination as to what it looks like.

Marta serves the ricotta warm from the cauldron, in pottery bowls, with some whey - servito con la siero. On the table, she puts out platters of tuma cheese and meats she has cured herself. Then she fries some ricotta-filled ravioli in shallow oil and sprinkles them with sugar.

Sheep's milk is denser and yet much softer, and the flavour is better than that made from cow’s milk. It is made in the same way, but as the milk itself is different so is the ricotta.

A couple of days later, we visit the commercial ricotta house of Carmelo Ruta in Modica’s new area. Carmelo – whose wife Gaetana Lissandrello and son Vincenzo Ruta are hard at work in the steam-laden production room, filling ricotta tubs from a large hot vat - explains to us that his ricotta is di pecora – made from ewe’s milk rather than cow’s milk. He sells his ricotta all over the region, as well as the hard cheeses he produces from the first ‘cooking’. Carmelo has adapted the traditional processes which we had seen take place in Marta Lemmolo’s home, and adapted them for use with EU-specification equipment and hygiene standards. The ricotta is super-fresh and with a rich taste, but it is produced in conformity with regulations that allow it onto the retail market.