Lasagna

A while back our cheese buyer went on a two week excursion to Italy. He had the chance to meet all of these great producers in the hopes of maybe getting some unique products into our shop. One of the things he brought back was Ricotta Forte. Most of the people at work didn't care for it, but I loved it! I took the jar home and tried to figure out something to do with it. Lasagna was the answer.

What is Ricotta Forte? To answer that you really need to know what Ricotta is. When cheese is made it is separated into curd and whey. The curds are made into yummy cheesy goodness, but the whey is still valuable. Some farmers add whey to feed for pigs which produces ridiculously tasty ham. If you take that whey and re-heat it, you get another set of curds. A bit more delicate than the first batch, this is Ricotta. Ricotta is a lovely fresh cheese that should be eaten straight away. If you have too much Ricotta, you salt it, mold it and dry it out a bit. Now you have Ricotta Salata.

Ricotta Forte is essentially spoiled Ricotta. Yes, that does sound kind of gross. It's not. If you think about it, cheese is the result of milk gone bad under controlled circumstances. After a few months you have a thick, crumbly, lightly caramel colored cheese that burns. Oh yes, it burns us precious! This cheese is acidic, tangy, pungent, salty, and to be honest, it hurts to eat it. My mouth tingled, my nose burned a bit. It was so good.

I have yet to find it here in Chicago and might have to mail order it since it's really specific to Puglia region of Italy (the heel of the boot). I added a little bit to my ricotta filling for lasaga and it was delicious!

The jar of Ricotta Forte.


In the background is the Ricotta mixture. In the foreground is a spoonful of the beast.


The Mozzarella I added came from Crave Brothers in Wisconsin. They do farmstead cheeses, and work at being a sustainable dairy. Four brothers. Really good cheese.
Mozz


Little mozzarella balls from Crave Brothers got sliced and tossed into the ricotta mixture. To be honest, some of the slices got tossed in my mouth. Their Mozzarella is light, milky, creamy and has just the right amount of salt. A far cry from the hard flavorless cheese you normally find in the supermarket.


I guess I have to give you a recipe. Here's what I did:

Meat Sauce:

1 lb. spicy turkey sausage
1 jar Pasta sauce of your choice (Newman's with roasted garlic is quite nice)
2 jars of water (use your pasta sauce jar)


Cheese Filling:

1 duck egg (or 2 lg. chicken eggs)
1 15oz. container of Ricotta
1/4 c. Ricotta Forte
1/4 c. grated Podda
5 ea. mini mozzarella balls sliced thin

Meat filling assembly:

• Take the sausage out of the casing and brown it
• Add your pasta sauce
• Fill the pasta jar with water shake it (to remove all sauce) and add it to the pot. Repeat.
  
• simmer (not boil) until the sauce is slightly thinner than what originally came out of the jar (45 min or so)
  

Cheese filling assembly:

• take one duck egg and add the regular ricotta to it
• using a spatula, mix it together until the egg is completely incorporated
• add the ricotta forte to the mix
• stir until smooth
• add Podda
• add Mozzarella

Putting it together:

• put a layer of sauce down (it keeps things from burning)
• then add a noodle layer
• cover noodles with meat sauce
• add cheese layer
• layer until you've got about 1/2" of space left at the top
• top layer should be cheesy goodness

I baked this for about 30 minutes-covered-in a 350 oven. If you want to brown it, take the dish and put it under your broiler for a few minutes. I know that there's no salt in this recipe. Unless you have a salt deficiency, it's really not needed. The Ricotta Forte has quite enough salt to it, as does the sausage. If you want to make this vegetarian, you may need some salt. Taste it and see what you think.

I'm going to be honest. I don't have a picture of the lasagna. Why? Well, I hadn't planned on this post really. I was going to do a little blurb about the new cheese, and that was going to be that. Anyway, you've seen lasagna so you know what it should look like. I offered some to my friend and he said that "It smelled like feet." Yeah, it does a little bit. But it is soooooooo good. I have a little bit of the Forte left. I think I'm going to stuff some shells.