Ricotta rundown

This cheesecake uses Polly-O ricotta and cream cheese.

I first tasted it at Roman Cucina. It was sweet, creamy with a slight grainy texture in the sausage pasta dish. What was it?

I called the restaurant and found out the gooey cheese was ricotta. What? Ricotta? When I think of ricotta, I think of a bland, grainy spread used to stuff raviolis or top a pizza. This ricotta was a welcome change, a sweet tasting white goo that was almost too sweet for the savory dish.

Fast forward 16 months and I’m at Bristol Farms. I see the yellow container. It’s Polly-O whole milk ricotta, the kind in the pasta dish. I grab one. If only I went to Bristol Farms before buying another whole milk ricotta at Henry’s.

If I ever made a dessert calling for ricotta, I wanted to use Polly-O. Well, the time came. A ricotta cheesecake recipe from Bon Appetit caught my eye and I made it Tuesday, without the accompanying orange-caramel sauce. The graham cracker crust holds a mixture of cream cheese and ricotta boosted with orange zest vanilla bean seeds and vanilla extract.

The cheesecake has orange zest, vanilla bean seeds and vanilla extract.

This cheesecake was delicious. The orange was subtle, but enough to give it a floral smell. It was creamy for ricotta and not too sweet. The graham cracker crust turned soggy, but perhaps that came from not draining the ricotta for at least eight hours (more like two or three).

What makes Polly-O different from other types of ricotta? I e-mailed Kraft Foods. The associate director of consumer relations didn’t divulge the amounts or percentages of ingredients because the recipe is proprietary. The ingredient list reads: pasteurized milk, whey, milkfat, salt, vinegar, and so on. According to the web site, Giuseppe Pollio started Polly-O more than 100 years ago. He set up ricotta and mozzarella kettles on the beach at Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y. The Pollio Italian Cheese Company produces nearly 100 million pounds of cheese per year.

Saveur magazine featured an article devoted to ricotta, from curds to finished cheese. There’s a step-by-step photo guide on the web site for making homemade ricotta and there’s a recipe for ricotta and coffee mousse. Giada De Laurentiis has a recipe for ricotta chocolate chip ice cream.

Whatever the preparation, ricotta has its uses and in Polly-O’s case, they made for one glorious cheesecake.