Passionfruit ricotta with honey and macadamia

The beauty of this dish lies in the texture and flavour of the freshly made ricotta. The passionfruit juice cleverly turns the milk into ricotta – and adds a subtle flavour to your ricotta.

Passion fruit ricotta with honey and macadamia Credit: Benito Martin

• serves

  4–6

• prep

  5 minutes

• cook

  40 minutes

• difficulty

  Mid

Ingredients

• 1 litre full-cream milk
• 100 ml pouring (pure/single) cream
• 40 g caster sugar
• 2 pinches table salt
• 30 ml strained passionfruit juice (from 4–6 passionfruit)
• 20 ml lemon juice

 

• 1 cup passionfruit pulp
• 1 tbsp honey
• ½ cup roughly crushed toasted macadamia nuts

Resting time: 1 hour

Instructions

Place the milk, cream, sugar, salt and passionfruit juice into a heavy-based pan, give it a whisk and put the pan over low-medium heat. Once you place it on the heat there’s no need for you to do anything except monitor the rise in temperature and whisk infrequently.

You want to heat the mixture slowly and gently until it reaches 90°C. This process will take 30-40 minutes. If it gets to 90°C before the 40 minutes, keep it stable at this temperature until the time is up.

Once you reach the right temperature, the milk looks like it’s starting to curdle. Remove the pan from the heat and let it sit for 30 minutes.

By this stage, you should be able to see that the mix has separated slightly and you now have curds and whey. With a slotted spoon or small sieve, gently scoop half your ricotta curds out into a colander, lined with muslin, over a bowl. 

Once you have removed about half the curds, spoon over half of the passionfruit pulp and then continue spooning the remaining curds on top. Once you have gotten most out, gently strain the remaining liquid through a sieve and add any residual bits to your curds in the colander. 

Let it sit for at least 30 minutes or until it has cooled enough to your liking. 

Add your honey to the remaining passionfruit pulp and mix to combine. 

When you are ready to serve, carefully spoon the fresh ricotta out among shallow bowls. Spoon the honeyed pulp evenly over the top of each bowl. Add the macadamias and serve.

Cook’s tips

• Fresh unhomogenised milk is best for making the ricotta.

Photography by Benito Martin. Food styling by O Tama Carey. Prop styling by Lynsey Fryers. Food preparation by Nick Banbury.

This recipe is part of The seasonal cook: Passionfruit column. View previous The seasonal cook columns and recipes.

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Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.