(crinkle and ringing)
(chime)
(bluesy music)
- Welcome to Spoiled to Perfection,
the show that unlocks the magic
behind food techniques, such as
pickling, fermenting, curing, salting,
and curdling, just to name a few.
I'm in the aging room at Bellwether Farms,
a Sonoma County dairy and creamery
owned and operated by the Callahan family.
Today, we're gonna be
talking with Liam Callahan.
How's it going, Liam?
- It's going great.
- All right, we're gonna be talking about
his amazing cheeses,
and we're gonna be talking about
the adventures that his
family had with sheep
when they moved from
the city to the country
and they needed help mowing the grass.
- We moved from San
Francisco up to Petaluma
in Sonoma County, and we had no plans
on getting into agriculture,
but by the end of the first summer,
we had grass over six feet tall.
- Oh my gosh.
- Realizing we needed
something, we found sheep.
My mom fell in love with raising them.
Started the business of raising our sheep,
selling some lamb.
Ultimately, we had a friend visit
who was from the Middle East originally,
saw all the sheep on
the hill, and thought,
Hey, you guys have so many sheep,
maybe you can milk 'em.
We did some research, and we found out
that some of our favorite
cheeses were sheep milk cheeses,
and we had no idea.
- [Garrett] Did you immediately
start making cheese?
- [Liam] The first two years, 1990-91,
we rented space in a small goat dairy,
and made our cheeses on the weekend,
and then immediately started going
to farmer's markets with them.
The fun part was, we
were developing cheeses,
so it encourqaged us to
continue trying things
and perfect our recipes, and ultimately,
we have a set of cheeses
that we generally sell
throughout the year now,
but we're constantly tinkering as well.
There's known styles of cheese,
and I'd like to make,
ultimately, one from every style
because we can.
In fact, we have a couple that
we're working on right now.
- So Garrett, here are a
couple of the experiments
I was talking about.
These are two varieties here.
This is a wash rind-style cheese.
Wash rind styles are
characteristically orange,
and this other cheese
here is called Blackstone.
It's our first mixed-milk cheese,
so we've taken cow and sheep's milk.
- Are you making any cheese today?
Can we go see something?
- We are, we've got some,
two vats going on right now.
(bluesy music)
- So Garrett, this is a vat
of our whole milk ricotta.
We've already used the fermentation
to produce the necessary
acidity for this product,
and that's gonna give us a
lot of great flavor as well.
- So you fermented this milk beforehand.
- That's it.
- Okay.
- Yeah, and that's a really
unusual thing to do for ricotta.
Normally, they just add vinegar
or citric acid or something.
- Right, some other kind of acid.
- That's right, but we
like the flavor we get
from the natural lactic fermentation.
We think it really helps out.
- Got it.
- So then we start heating it up,
because, of course, in Italian,
ricotta means recooked.
You are literally cooking it again.
- Cooking it again, yeah.
- And that high temperature,
combined with the acidity,
destabilizes the protein,
and it comes out in the form of ricotta.
So as I'm starting to get
into the temperature range,
we can see on this spatula
- Right.
- A slight break in the milk
that let's me know that
it's about to happen.
- When you say "break
in the milk," you mean
it's the beginning of the
whey and the curds separating.
- That's it.
- Okay.
- Yeah, 'cause what it
initially starts to look like
is a little bit of a
thickening of the milk.
And then you can actually
start to see little flecks
of curd on the spatula,
that looking in the kettle,
you can't see at all.
- Right, and what
temperature are we at, here?
It feels very hot.
- Yeah, we,
all ricotta is made above 180 degrees.
- Got it.
- We're in the mid-180s.
- Yeah, so nothing you want
to be touching too much.
- Yeah, you don't wanna dip
your finger in there, no.
So, again, I continue to watch,
and if you get the
reflection right in there
just right...
- You looking for just a
separation of the milk?
- That's it, and once I see it clearly,
I'll be sure to show you.
- Sure.
- It's uh...
but I do see the milk starting
to thicken a little bit.
(bluesy music)
This is the Carmody cheese that we make.
- Carmody, yeah.
- Yeah, and so,
this we cultured
for a minute up in the vat.
We cut...
Once we get the curd to
the right moisture content,
by stirring it and
raising the temperature,
it's time to fill the forms.
So we just do 'em six at a time.
And I can feel the curd
is at the right firmness.
- Uh huh, how firm does it feel?
Can I feel it?
- Sure.
- So it feels just kinda,
I don't know,
soft and squishy?
Just a little bit firm?
- But there's a distinct shapes of curd.
It's not paste.
The texture of the curd tells us,
you know, if we have the
right amount of moisture
left in that curd going into the wheels.
And I can't feel that through work gloves.
- Right.
- I just can't.
- So it's a subtle thing you feel.
- That's it, yeah.
You know, when the curd
hits against your skin, you can feel...
And I know the feeling of my cheeses,
so I know I'm in the range
of moisture that I want.
- Would it be possible for
me to try doing the form?
- Sure.
- Or is that not something...
- No, we can try one.
- All right.
Okay, so...
- Yeah.
- [Garrett] Grab the valve.
- [Liam] Open that valve.
- And fully open.
- Oh, so fully open.
- And then we'll just push it
- Be pushing it in.
- Into the forms.
- So what do you think?
(Garrett laughs)
I'm ruining all your cheese!
- No, you're not at all.
It's perfectly fine.
Here, I'll finish it up.
- All right, all right.
- Thanks, that was fun.
- Yeah.
(bluesy music)
- So we just have filled these,
and the thing that surprises most people
is how quickly...
(Garrett laughs)
- That protein sticks together.
- Woah!
I was not expecting that.
It's very soft.
You can see my handprint in there.
- Yeah, right, right.
- But then we will start our flipping.
- Amazing, so you push
down on it a little bit
and then start flipping it over?
- You don't have to push at all.
- [Garrett] Flip it out and in.
Can I give one a try?
- Yeah, go ahead.
- All right, so you just
sort of flip it in here?
- Yeah, it's a little bit like a pan,
but it's a little bit tricky.
- [Garrett] Oh my God.
- There you go, you're getting there.
- Oh, yes!
Too far, too far.
- [Liam] Overshot.
- Just like that?
- That's it.
- Yes!
- So now, the bottom side
is under more pressure than the top,
so we're helping it to drain evenly,
- Better draining.
- Top and bottom.
And also to make us
have a nice smooth rind.
(bluesy music)
So, Garrett, we're gonna
scoop some ricotta now.
Of course, we've heated
this up quite a bit,
so we always wear some gloves
to protect our fingers.
It's real, real nice heavy glove.
- Just one glove?
- One is fine.
And so we'll scoop into
the vat,
and just right to the
table with the baskets.
- Just like that?
- Yeah.
So just get it all the way under the curds
so you get a full basket.
- All the way under.
- There you go.
And scoop in like this.
- Just like that?
- Turn it, there you go.
So once we have a good number of baskets
filled first, we will start to top it off,
and we'll just take this spoon,
and we'll just go around to the baskets.
(bluesy music)
So, Garrett, I wanna show you the product
of all our hard work.
- Yeah.
- Ricotta draining.
We've gotten these out of the kettle.
They come in here on this tray and rack.
They cool down and drain.
It takes about 90 minutes,
and they'll be ready for packaging.
They'll be vacuumed whole so that
the basket ships with the product.
It's never disturbed, and that way,
it's really the most delicious
and has the most tender texture.
- Right, because it's not
been handled too much.
- That's right, the
more you break ricotta,
it becomes very coarse in texture,
and you can feel that
graininess on the tongue.
- Right, gentle handling
all the way through.
- That's the secret.
They'll be ready for our tasting tomorrow.
- Yes!
- Have a chance to introduce
you to my wife, Diana.
- I'm looking forward to it.
(bluesy music)
Hey, guys.
- Hey, Garrett. Good to see you.
- Good to see you.
- Good to see you again.
- [Garrett] How's it going today?
- Great, really good.
I am so glad you were
able to come to the farm
and watch us make cheese.
- It was fantastic.
Today, we're kinda doing what we call
Thanksgiving in a Bowl.
It's just beautiful.
We love to take the retail basket ricotta,
flip it outside like this,
take it out of the basket,
and then slice it like a cake.
You can follow the dye line on the basket.
- Little slice here.
- Right there.
And then we've roasted some
beautiful fall vegetables.
Today, we've done sweet potatoes, apples,
pearl onions, and then a
nice sage on the top of it.
It's beautiful.
So we'll put these roasted vegetables
next to your ricotta right here.
- All right.
- And then you just kinda
get to eat and enjoy
the savory flavors of the vegetables
and the fresh, delicious
flavor of the ricotta.
We do this at home a lot.
During the summertime,
we'll grill vegetables,
some yellow squash, green squash,
beautiful big red onions.
Put it all on a big platter,
and people just kinda
take it family style, the
way you like to do it.
This ricotta is so nice, you
can just slice it like this
and then drizzle your
favorite herbs on top of it.
But this flavor is amazing.
And suddenly, you're still
tasting that delicious
savoriness from the vegetables
with this fresh ricotta.
- Mmm hmm.
- So good.
- What do you think?
- It almost has a buttery sweetness to it.
- Yeah, really nice.
- Especially when you
hit that sweet potato.
- Oh yeah!
- Sweet potato with the ricotta, so good.
- It's magic.
- It's magic.
- It is magic.
- And then, with a crispy
little bit of sage on it,
- The sage.
- Nice texture.
- Really, really good.
- Oh, that's fantastic.
- The Italians, going
back to the Italian roots
of this whole cheese, keep
ricotta out on the table
kind of in lieu of butter all the time.
They just keep it like this, slice it up,
put it out on your plate,
put it with your
vegetables, with your bread,
like we had on the bruschetta,
put it on your pasta.
It's just such a delightful cheese.
- So, room temperature is fine.
You can leave it out
throughout your dinner and sort of--
- And bring it out for the meal.
- Yeah.
It's really good.
Today we made some lemon ricotta pancakes.
Liam will serve you up a pancake here.
- Sure.
- You'll notice it's so light and fluffy.
Super easy to make.
Beautiful lemon zest in there,
and nice, fluffy ricotta.
- Yes.
- Just delicious, great way
to start your Sunday morning.
- Yeah, and mixing ricotta
with pancake batter,
that's so hot right now, right?
- It is trending now.
Lemon pancakes, you see
them on all the great menus
and the great food blogs,
beautiful photos of them.
Liam really likes them, too.
- Well, we talked about
trying to feature the ricotta
as a stand-alone product,
but in this case, mixing it in really does
bring something to the table.
It's the lightest, most moist pancake
you're ever going to have.
- That's a great way to say it.
It's light, it's moist,
it's got the crispy
texture on the outside,
and the creaminess in the mouthfeel.
- That's right.
- Wonderful.
- So, Garrett, we spent a lot of time
talking about our ricotta today,
but, of course, we make
quite an assortment
of aged cheeses as well.
And when you're talking
about aged cheeses,
you're really talking
about controlled spoilage.
We are introducing a bacteria
that wants to eat that milk,
and it's fermenting
the milk sugars for us.
And the result of that,
if you do it right,
is all the variety of cheeses out there.
- With the same base products.
- [Liam] That's right, that's right.
So you can vary the mix of bacteria
that you're using for your fermentation.
You can vary the temperature range
that you're introducing the bacteria,
then the temperature that
you age the cheese at
affects it.
How much moisture is in
the cheese, we talked about
when we were filling the forms of Carmody,
feeling that we had the
right moisture content there.
- Yes.
- Well, that will control the fermentation
and then ultimately
the texture and flavors
that come out in the cheese.
(slow jazz)
- Well, guys, thank
you so much for sharing
an experience at the creamery yesterday
and for this great tasting today.
I'm so excited about your cheeses
and the things you're doing with them,
and I'm just excited to
share 'em with the world.
- Well, thank you, Garrett.
It's been really a fun,
fun couple of days.
- Yeah, a lot of fun showing
you around and letting you
get your hands in the
cheese there a little bit.
- Yeah, yeah, it was really fun.
Thank you.
- Strong arms.
(Garrett and Diana laugh)
- It's been a fantastic experience
over the past couple of days.
First, getting a change to see
what artisanal cheese-making
really looks and feels like.
And then today, being here at Relish,
tasting all the different ways
to experience ricotta cheese.
It's been amazing.
I hope you'll join us next time
when we continue to unlock the magic
behind transforming raw ingredients
into foods that are spoiled to perfection.
(crinkle and ringing)
(chime)
- [Voiceover] Spoiled to Perfection
is brought to you by Bubbies.
See us online at Bubbies.com,
and remember to "Eat my
pickles, wear clean underwear,
and marry a doctor."
(bluesy music)
