This week’s leftover ingredient? Ricotta. I can’t even remember what I bought it for, but I only needed a little – oh wait, yes I do: it was meatballs. Anyway, what to do with the leftover? I always have plain, Greek yogurt around; I figured it could be combined with ricotta to good effect, producing something ever-so-slightly reminiscent of a cannoli filling. Of course, Google used this “discovery” of mine – as it often does – to show me just how unoriginal my thoughts are, turning up nearly six million hits on the combination. But I decided not to let an internet giant and its hosts of robots limit my fierce culinary realness. I’m going to climb that six-million-post mountain and plant my ricotta-and-yogurt flag on top of it! Anyway, if Google already knows about ricotta-yogurt combinations, it doesn’t seem to know what to call them. Allow me, Google: Yogurt + Ricotta = Yogotta.

This is hardly going to be a recipe post. It’s going to be more of a survey of ideas. The first of them? I like a ratio of three parts yogurt to one part ricotta, but I see that amongst the cuisinigencia as a whole, the proportions vary wildly. Seriously, any ratio will please at least somebody.

The second one: sugar. I buy plain yogurt. Sometimes I sweeten it, but other times I’m just too damned lazy to dig a spoon into the sugar bowl, and I eat the stuff plain. I’ve done this enough times that I’ve become accustomed to unsweetened, plain yogurt. (You’re probably thinking, “Oh, you’re THAT lazy?” The answer would be no … that example barely scratches the surface of the depth of my laziness.) In the end, though, this is a matter of taste, and it’s easy to figure out. Stir in some sugar (any kind of sugar, although powdered sugar is the easiest), taste it, and if you want more, add more. Did I even have to say that? (I guess I did.)

Third: technique. Many people suggest whipping the ricotta and yogurt together. I find that some very vigorous stirring does the job, and you can eat the result with the same spoon you used to stir it … mic drop. Indeed, I think the term “whip” is misleading in this context, since it implies that you’re going to incorporate air to create a dramatic difference in texture. All you’re going to do to the ricotta is loosen it up, no matter how hard you whip it, and yogurt simply becomes more liquid for having been stirred. If you’re making vast quantities, by all means use a mixer. Regardless of how you do it, note that the finished yogotta will seem loose (but not disappointingly so) at first, but if you want it really thick, park it in the fridge for a few hours, or overnight.

So then, all that’s left is to discuss what you should add to your yogotta to make it all the more delectable. You have only three choices: things that will blend with it, things that will become suspended in it, and things that will get swirled or layered into it. Note that if you layer things, what you’re making is rightly called a parfait – but only in America. To the French, a parfait is a frozen concoction not unlike ice cream.

Blended things:

• Vanilla, obviously – especially if you use the bean and get those awesome little seeds mixed into your yogotta
• Don’t forget cooled, melted chocolate
• A shot of sweetened espresso
• Maple syrup
• Poppy-seed pastry filling (or just poppy seeds, but that’s more of a suspension)

Swirled or layered things:

• Any kind of jam or preserves. You can use whatever you have on-hand – but I hope that what you have on hand is something amazing, like Montmorency tart cherry, or strawberry-apricot.
• Honey. Caramel. Pie filling or the like.
• Note that anything that you’d swirl, you could just as easily blend; it’s simply a matter of preference. Note also that pie filling – blueberry in particular – if blended, turns the yogotta into something so mousse-like that you’ll want to hide it in the back of the fridge so you can keep it all to yourself.

Suspended things:

• Fruits – especially soft fruits … maybe grilled, soft fruits, like peaches
• Exceptionally ripe, in-season, local berries of any kind
• Hard fruits (like apples) could be sautéed beforehand, but they could also be raw and finely diced.
• Nuts (toasted), seeds, cereals, cookies
• Herbs – many (like fresh thyme) can be combined with fruit (like blueberry) to make interesting combinations
• Spices: like it in a cookie? You’ll like it in a parfait: think cinnamon, ginger. But also think curry, which is surprisingly nice in a sweet context – especially with raisins.
• I diced up some nice-and-gooey, homemade lemon bars, and stirred them into a parfait, and it was delicious. I did the same thing with chocolate-cherry fudge (which I topped with toasted almonds and raw hazelnuts). I didn’t say this was going to be healthy.

A word of warning: if you go out into the virtual world, looking for parfait ideas, keep in mind that the quality of the picture doesn’t necessarily imply a similar quality in the recipe. For example, I saw an image of a kumquat parfait that was so mouthwatering I wanted to lick my computer screen. However, after reading the recipe, I discovered that the author had simply sliced raw kumquats into the parfait. I’m enough of a kumquat aficionado to have tasted raw kumquat, and believe me when I tell you, there are not many people in this world who would welcome the experience. I like raw kumquat, but I’m a thrill-seeker, and weird in general. I would never serve a raw kumquat to an unsuspecting muggle. Now, candied kumquats, on the other hand, hell yeah.

Could pistachios make your yogotta green? I think they could if you blanched them to remove the skins, spun them into a pistachio butter, and then blended them in. Doesn’t that sound amazing? If I try it, I’ll definitely post about it.

Let me just add here that yogotta parfaits aren’t just for breakfast. They’re also for lunch, or for snacking on, or even for dessert. Let me also add that they are probably calorie bombs. I don’t even want to know.

I’d like to round out this post with some interesting ricotta info. It doesn’t melt. You know this if you’ve ever had a lasagna layered with ricotta. (And if you haven’t … what?) What you may not know, though, is why. It’s because ricotta – Italian ricotta, anyway – is curdled by acid, not rennet. Acid dissolves the calcium glue that holds casein proteins together in micelles, and it eliminates each protein’s negative electrical charge, which would otherwise cause the proteins to repel each other. The proteins are free to flock together and bond extensively into microscopic clumps. So when an acid curd is heated, the first thing to be shaken loose is not the proteins, but water; the water boils away and this simply dries out and concentrates the protein even further. This information won’t help you with your yogotta, but knowledge is intrinsically good, which means that now you’re better.

Yogurt + Ricotta = Yogotta

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything – not even by Food for Thought, which I featured prominently. They make their jams just a short bicycle ride from where I spend my summers, and in fact, at the end of Esch Road is my favorite beach of all time. I served a case of their preserves (which I bought at Market Basket – because I love that place, and not just because it’s right next door to the Cherry Hut) to go with the tower of cheese that usurped the place of a traditional cake at my wedding.

My unending thanks goes out to Harold McGee, whose “On Food and Cooking” (New York: Scribner, 2004) brought you that last, wonky paragraph, and tons of ongoing joy to me and my insatiable curiosity.

Unfortunately, the plural of yogotta cannot be Yo Gotti, since that name’s already taken. Alas, back to square one.

Thank you, Kesor.

I can’t believe I got all the way to the end of this post without saying, “Yogotta have yogotta!”

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