Home made ricotta cheese
I took another cooking class last week and this time tried to recreate some of the Indian dishes at home. We learned how to make tandoori chicken, butter chicken, palak paneer (spinach with cheese), and one or two other dishes.
I have learned a few cooking tips but mainly I have found that the dishes are surprisingly easy to make. I also wonder how it came to be that I am forty years old and never knew how to make home made ricotta.
Once again I have been failed by public education. Or maybe by my brother, who owns a cafe in Oregon. I think he might be hiding ricotta in the oven-baked pasta.
Seriously, what is more useful to me: Knowing that there are 6.02 x 10^23 molecules in a mole or that I do not have to drive to four grocery stores in 90-degree heat to find an expensive tub of cheese?
Or is there a chemist somewhere who is sitting up to his ankles in milk but cannot remember Avogadro’s number? (Avogadro sounds like avocado. I shall never forget him while eating guacamole.)
It takes a lot of milk to make cheese. You bring it to a boil with a pinch of salt, add a few tablespoons of vinegar or lemon juice, stir, and then strain it through a cheesecloth. I used it to make the palak paneer as well as lasagna. Naturally I made too much and have to figure out what to do with it.
Then again, if they did teach anything in school I was probably skipping class that day semester.
I now see the error of my ways.
