On smoked ricotta......

    Here's a dish inspired by a technique I learned while staging at Empellon Cocina. They smoke ricotta and serve it with tortilla and three salsas. Smoking ricotta sounds complex but its a very simple and effortless technique. Basically what you want to do is take a six inch hotel pan and place it over two burners on medium heat. Once your pan starts getting hot add your wood chips, I like to use hickory because it imparts a nutty and sweet aroma. As soon as the chips start to smoke turn your heat down to low. Place a 4 inch perforated pan over the wood chips in order to hold your ricotta. Put your ricotta into a 2 inch third pan or a 1/4 sheet pan would work better. You want to spread your ricotta as thin as possible, the more surface area exposed to the smoke the faster the smoke aroma will permeate throughout cheese.  Place your third pan or 1/4 sheet pan filled with ricotta  over the perforated hotel pan. In order to capture the smoke, take a 2 inch hotel pan and place it over the ricotta making sure that your still getting smoke out of the wood chips. If they are not smoking anymore just turn the heat up high untill it starts to smoke again and then turn it back down to low. The ricotta will smoke quickly, a good 8 minutes will do the trick, although you can leave it in longer depending on how predominant you want your smoke flavor to be. Remove the ricotta from the pan and place into a container to cool down, make sure to mix it well in order to disperse smoke flavor evenly through out.  Before serving just add a little salt. It works great as the focal point in a dish but it can also take a supporting role in any plate you want  to add notes of smoke; such as pastas or pizzas. For this dish I took my smoked ricotta and added salt and lemon zest. I served it with honey, crispy prosciutto, evoo, pepper flakes, and basil from our roof top garden. Along side the ricotta I served a thyme scented flat bread which I baked earlier in the day.