Ricotta Cheese

      You can easily buy ricotta cheese at the store, but making fresh ricotta cheese is fun. Personally, it taste better too (probably my bias :) ). But hey if you have to spare time, and want to experience some easy cheese-making process. Wolah! Or maybe impress someone a little! Just kidding, but really it is simple but the outcome could look fancy ( or not) ! I just hope you will give it a try,

      Ingredient:

            

            450 ml whole milk ( 1 cups)

            400 ml heavy cream (or milk, or half and half

            30 ml vinegar

            ¼ tsp. of salt

            Cheese cloth, strainer, & glass bowl

      Note*: you can substitute the cream with whole milk or half and half. But please don’t use 2% or    anything less of the fat content than whole milk since we want that creamy texture and content.

   Shall we begin?

      Procedure:

1. Mix the whole milk and cream together.
2. Bring the milk to bubbling (i.e warm it to pasteurized, but you don’t want to boil). It will be good if you have a thermometer. But if you don’t, just look for small bubble forming on the rear of the pot.
3.  When you achieve the right temperature, remove from the heat.
4.  Add the vinegar, spoon by spoon and stir. Once you see the cloudy texture form, don’t add more vinegar. Continue to stir to see the white cloud particulate forming, separating from the yellow clear liquid.
5.  Lay the cheese cloth on top of strainer. Pour everything into the strainer. Let it sit for at least 1 hour to strain. 
6. After it strain, you can put in a glass bowl and store in the refrigerator. 

        You can use it for breakfast or any recipe that need ricotta cheese. Good luck with the recipe.               Here is my cheese. 

         

Gỏi miến chay

Some Vietnamese eat vegetarian food twice a month: in the full or new moon. To me, it is a good habit whether it is for religious belief or for health conscious, or better yet vegetarian food could be supper delicious and simply put together. Like this following dish of bean thread & veggie noodle salad.

Please make it sometimes J

Ingredient:

396g of tofu (~1small block)

4oz of bean thread noodle (~2 rolls)

1 cucumber, thinly sliced

1 small carrot, thinly sliced

100g of vegetarian ham (optional)

150g of dried bean curd (optional but highly recommended)

Vinegar & sugar & oil

Roasted peanut, slightly crushed

Vietnamese mint – rau ram (substitute mint if you can’t find them)

Sauce: (make 2 batch of sauce, 1 for dipping and the other for the salad dressing)

5 tbsp. soy sauce

3tbsp of sugar

1 lime, 1tsp Sriracha

1 thai chili (optional if you like spiciness)

Procedure:

1. Soak the noodle in lukewarm water for at least 1 hours. Drained them and set assign to dry.
2. Making the vinegar solution: ¼ cup of vinegar, ¼ cups of sugar, 2 cups of water. Put the sliced cucumber and carrot into the vinegar sugar water for at least 30 mins. This will make the vegetable absorb the sweet and sour taste. Drain & lightly squish out all the access water. 
3. Cut the ham and the tofu about 3cm wide. Slightly oil the pan to pan-fried the tofu and the ham. Remember, you only want them to be golden brown on the outside, deep-fried or fried them too long will make them hardened.
4. If you using bean curd, fried them until crisp.
5. Whisk the ingredient of the sauce together. Please adjust them to taste, you want them to be sweet and sour, not overly salty.
6. Mix the noodle, pickled veggie, ham, tofu, and bean curd together with the sauce.
7.  
8. Top with crushed roasted peanut and the mint. Serve the sauce