Those in the blogging world may recognise this recipe. It was first posted, a couple of years ago, by Nancy at PlusAteSix. After Nancy’s post, I made it a couple of times in quick succession and then I moved on. Yesterday, because we were having a few friends over for drinks, I decided to make it again.
I remembered it being a great recipe, I remembered it was Nancy’s recipe and I remembered I had made a note in one of my posts about how good it was, but that was all. I went searching. I found the note and a link to the recipe but, alas, the link didn’t work.
Damn it! So I searched for the recipe on-line and the only hits I got were from Pinterest. Quite a few people had pinned Nancy’s recipe. This gave me the list of ingredients but when I clicked on the link on how to make it, it didn’t work. Clearly, Nancy has killed her blog.
I turned my mind back to her post. I remember her saying how simple it was. I remember making a comment on her post how I had made it and it was fabulous. I think Nancy suggested adding a drizzle of honey and I vaguely remember a suggestion that nuts would be a good addition.
As I remember it being described as “simple”, I guessed it was a matter of combining the ingredients and baking it. Anyway, that is what I did and it was yummy. I decided to write this post because I know I will want to make this again and next time I would love to know what to do from the outset. If anyone does remember Nancy’s post and remembers there being more to this that my method requires, I would love to hear from you.
Ingredients:
-
400g drained ricotta*
- 1 red chilli
- 150g grapes, seedless green (I was a bit generous with the grapes)
- lemon zest of 1 lemon
- 1 sprig of rosemary
- 8 sprigs of thyme
- 50g pitted olives
- ½ tsp fennel seeds
- salt & pepper, to taste
-
1 tbs olive oil (I gave it a good drizzle)
-
parsley and/or mint leaves
The additions I made:
- 2 tbs hazelnuts, roughly chopped
- a drizzle of honey
* I reckon the best ricotta for this recipe that is readily available is La Casa Del Formaggio traditional ricotta. You can get it in Woolworths and Coles. It comes in a 1 kg green basket and it is sold near the deli section. I am sure there are other brands out there but, for general availability, this one is the go (Maus noted that that is a rather ridiculous statement since we travelled 40 kilometres to Manjimup to buy it!). If you have no use for 1 kg of ricotta or can’t find it, buy 500g of ricotta in a tub, line a colander with some light cloth and drain it over a bowl in the fridge overnight.
Method:
Now remember, I have no idea what you are supposed to do but this is what I did and it worked.
Prepare the ricotta:
- Choose a dish that is ovenproof and looks good. Set it aside.
- Choose a bowl the right size to take the ricotta, line it with plastic wrap.
- Push the ricotta firmly into the bowl.
- Turn the bowl upside down into your chosen baking dish.
- Lift the bowl and plastic wrap up leaving the ricotta. Set aside in the fridge until needed.
Prepare the rest of the ingredients:
- Slice the grapes and chilli, zest a lemon and roughly chop the olives.
- Combine all the ingredients (except the parsley and the honey) in a bowl then set aside until you are ready to bake.
- Preheat your oven to 180ºC.
- Tip the mixture over the ricotta.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.
- If desired, drizzle honey over the ricotta.
- Sprinkle with chopped parsley/mint.
This really went down well, accompanied by far too many wines.
Passion Fruit Garden 
As well as a great recipe that is a great tip about decent readily* available ricotta.
*All things supermarket are 30 kms away for us.
Which is good and bad, it makes us flexible-creative-efficient, sometimes it’s more work and less convenience, and occasionally convenience is nice. I do make my own ricotta but unless I am using up excess milk or have access to raw milk, good bought ricotta is more practical.
I luurve baked ricotta. It’s a catering standby and in fact, I made it for nibbles when we had people over last night. Mine is a good deal more spartan than yours with a dribble of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and a splash of vinocotto + some pine nuts to bronze on top. It has never occurred to me add more ingredients and ‘make a meal of of it’. I’ll give it a go.
Hi Fi, this is a great nibbles dish. It would be great if I replaced the honey with vinovotto and the nuts with pine nuts.
this sounds delicious. Is it served with crackers or bread?
Hi Yvonne, I served it with flatbread that I had split and dried as I didn’t want anything too filling but is was absolutely fab the next day atop a slice of sour dough bread.
nancy!? i had forgotten about nancy. she used to do IMK when celia hosted. this looks like a tasty recipe you have here. hazelnuts and honey sound great. have a great xmas. cheers sherry
Hi Sherry, I wonder why Nancy has killed her blog. That is the trouble with just putting a link in.
A delicious sounding recipe 🙂
Thanks Carol