Tomino Caprino di Pino: Goat Cheese Goodness

Know the primary steps to a tasty goat cheese?

1. Raise the goats, assuring they eat healthily: pasture – with plenty of grazing room – and evening feeds of hay and barley mash, too

2. When the females’ kids are about two months old, pasture can substitute mothers’ milk for the kids – and the mother goats can be milked.

3. After milking, cheese-making time.

When Pino first started milking our goats in early spring, he’d take all their milk to Serenella, farm neighbor of our friend Peppa, with cheese-making know-how.
Serenella made our goat cheese for a few months:

…and then Pino learned how to make us his “tomino caprino di Pino.” He now milks five of our eighteen goats each night, with a yield of five liters of milk.
He then heats goat milk to 22 C. Pino adds one cup of the whey of the prior days’ cheese-making and lets sit thirty minutes, before adding the rennet. The goats’ milk rests for twenty-four hours. The cheese then separates from the whey and Pino puts the cheese mass into a cotton cloth in a colander, allowing it to filter for twelve hours before dividing the cheese up into cheese baskets.

….and ah, what tomino caprino di Pino! Nothing like it with fresh fava beans to munch.

What ricotta di capra Pino makes, too:

Not just delicious on bread in the mornings with chestnut honey…but in pasta alla ricotta, too:

[lcaption]Pasta alla ricotta – but with goats’ milk ricotta[/lcaption]

The ricotta is also a savory addition to a frittata with spring vegetables:

….and strawberry tiramisu highlighted with a cream of mascarpone and ricotta di capra, crowns any summer feast. (Add a sprinkle of crushed amaretti on top: buonissimo!)

[lcaption]Goats’ milk ricotta for the tiramisu creamy mixture[/lcaption]