On fresh ricotta and a recipe to enjoy it during the summer.

A quintessential Mediterranean dish that showcases some of the best summer ingredients: fresh ricotta, eggplants, tomatoes, balsamic, fresh basil, and dried oregano.

Ricotta has encoded in its name the way it is produced. “Ri-cotta” in Italian means “re-cooked,” or “cooked again,” referring to how the fresh whey cheese is made by re-cooking the whey leftover from making other cheeses. This process is key to making real ricotta, in its lightest, softest, truest form.  

To understand how it’s done, let’s imagine a visi…