It all started with 2 liters of farm milk. You know, that milk in those two-liter bottles the farmers from different parts of Bulgaria bring to sell at the Women’s Market. I get up super early just to catch them while they have everything I need, and not to wait in line for ages. It’s so good, real and delicious, and it smells… of milk, village, of childhood.
Clément drinks fresh milk at home and says he’s never had milk like this before. After boiling it in advance, he warms up a decent bowl of it for breakfast with a generous spoonful of cocoa powder. Even I was impressed by how nice a foam this milk makes and how well the fatty cocoa dissolves in it.
So, the milk I bought on Sunday, I was lazy and didn’t boil it right away (as I should have), but only the next morning. When I took the milk maker off the stove, I immediately removed the lid to cool it down faster, so I could pour it into two glass bottles and store it in the fridge for 3-4 days. But it doesn’t last that long because by then Clément would have drunk it.
After half an hour or so, when I got the hang of pouring it into the bottles, something didn’t feel right. It was sitting there like a jelly, thick. This, called spontaneous curdling, happens with milk that has a lot of natural bacteria. Although I didn’t check at first, it’s possible the milk had already fermented a bit, and that’s why the proteins in it clumped together when it was heated and cooled.
Luckily, I knew my milk wasn’t spoiled, but it had just turned into a kind of cheese or curd. So, here’s what I did:
I made 400 g of ricotta (homemade cottage cheese) and 1⅔ l of buttermilk (the one I remember from children's literature and I still haven't tasted)
Homemade Cottage Cheese and Buttermilk
And because this only inspired me for more experiments, I took few more steps.
Salty ricotta cream with spices (Ricotta salata spalmabile)
As I made some yummy pancakes (in which recipe I replaced the fresh milk with buttermilk), and to complement them, I put together some sweet cream spread.
Ricotta cream with honey and nuts (Ricotta al miele e noci)
Bon appétit !