The above magazine is one of my favourites. From Australia, it has some of the most beautiful food and travel photographs imaginable. The kind that make you want to jump up and start cooking or planning your next vacation. In the most recent edition available here, I noticed an interesting little recipe for baked ricotta. It immediately jumped at me not least because it looked so fragile and delicate with pale creams and yellows intermingling together and a crumbly, creamy texture, but also because it meant I could use the ricotta I bought misguidedly for Christmas thinking I possibly couldn't do without it and now sitting on the shelf nearing its sell by date. So, a nice little dish and no guilt.
Sort of like a souffle, this required an egg white to be beaten to soft peaks. I did it by hand. Getting out a whisk and spending 8 minutes exercising my arm is easier than getting a chair to reach the electric whisk, plugging it in, getting egg whites all over the walls and then having to clean it all up, wash the whisks and put it away. Madness.
And of course, being sort of like a souffle, they deflate.
The texture was creamy and slightly crumbly with an airy lightness which was very nice. I added saffron and some lemon juice to the original recipe to really bump up the colour. It worked well with stripes of sunset yellow, buttercup and palest cream. Pretty.
Recipe (Adapted from Gourmet Traveller)
200g ricotta cheese
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
1 tbsp thyme leaves
1 egg, separated
pinch of saffron strands
juice of half a lemon
salt and pepper to taste
a little flour
Process the ricotta, Parmesan, thyme, saffron, lemon juice and egg yolk together in a processor until smooth.
Season to taste.
Whip the egg white until soft peaks form and gently stir in to ricotta mixture.
Pour the mixture into two buttered and lightly floured ramekins and bake at 400oF for about 15 - 20 minutes or until golden, puffy and firm.
Eat immediately, they will start to deflate as soon as they come out of the oven, but no matter, it doesn't affect the taste and they stay pretty firm.
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