Ricotta Salata

Ricotta salata starts as ricotta, which is not really a cheese at all. Ricotta is made by reheating the whey left over from making pecorino until the remaining proteins float to the surface: ri-cotta, re-cooked. No rennet is added, no curd is cut. What you get is soft, sweet and highly perishable.

Ricotta salata is what happens if you refuse to let it perish. The fresh ricotta is drained in perforated baskets, dry-salted repeatedly over a week or two, pressed to force out the remaining moisture and then aged for three to six months. It loses more than half its weight and becomes a dense, chalk-white block that grates into fine snowy shreds or crumbles into clean shards.

It is white all the way through, with no yellowing and no real rind, just the basket's ridged pattern printed on the surface. Sicily makes most of it, and Sicily is where it matters most.

Salty first, then milky. The salinity is direct and clean, closer to feta than to pecorino, and behind it sits the distinctive sweetness of sheep's milk: a little grassy, a little buttery, never barnyard.

The texture does half the work. It is firm and slightly chalky, drier than feta and less greasy than aged pecorino, so it grates into fluffy threads that sit on top of hot pasta rather than melting into it. Bite a piece on its own and it crumbles rather than yields.

Compared with pecorino romano it is markedly less aggressive: no peppery bite, no lingering sharpness, less fat. Compared with feta it is drier, less tangy and not remotely briny. That middle position is exactly why it works over fried aubergine and tomato, where anything sharper would take over.

Grate it, coarsely, over hot food at the moment of serving. Pasta alla Norma is the canonical use: fried aubergine, tomato sauce, torn basil, then a thick snowfall of ricotta salata that half-softens in the heat without melting. Do not stir it in.

It is equally at home raw and shaved: over an orange and fennel salad, over sliced tomatoes with oregano and olive oil, over warm caponata, over grilled courgettes. Its acidity is gentler than pecorino's, so it reads as refreshing rather than sharp.

Remember that it does not melt. In a baked dish it will dry out into hard flecks, so add it after the oven, not before. In meatballs, stuffings and fritters it works well, adding salt and savour without releasing water.

Anywhere a recipe calls for pecorino romano and you want the volume turned down (a delicate vegetable pasta, a fish dish, a spring salad) ricotta salata is the better choice.

A vacuum-sealed block keeps at 4 C until the date on the pack, which is the maker's reference. Once it is open the wrapping decides everything: cheese paper, or a barely damp cloth, inside a box that is not airtight, and it will hold a good month in the fridge. Do not lay cling film against the surface, which turns slick within days. What happens in the meantime is simple water loss. The cut face dries, whitens further and hardens, the edges go translucent, and the salt concentrates as the moisture leaves, so the flavour sharpens week by week.

A piece that has gone rock hard is the grating stage of its life, and it powders more finely then than when fresh. A whole uncut wheel does not need the fridge at all: in a cool ventilated cellar it goes on ageing slowly and losing weight. It also freezes, best already grated and portioned, for around six months at minus 18 C, since it is never asked to melt or hold a slice. Thawed blocks crumble more readily than they did.

Absolute white, inside and out. A straw or heavy ivory cast, or yellow showing under the surface, means an old piece or one that has been kept badly. The paste is compact but crumbly: it takes a knife without shattering and grates without clogging the blade. There should be no holes and no true rind, only a slightly drier outside carrying the marks of the draining basket. It smells of sheep milk and butter with no sour edge, and the salt should arrive first without flattening everything, leaving a sweet milky finish behind it.

The usual mistake abroad is buying the wrong white salty block. Feta sits in brine, tastes lactic and sharp and breaks into wet chunks; cotija, in the Mexican section of American supermarkets, is the closest in texture but saltier and made from cow milk; Greek myzithra is the near relative. Read the label for sheep milk, because a great many industrial blocks are made from cow whey or a blend and behave differently on the plate. A rectangular vacuum block with no milk stated is the tell, and it costs well under an imported sheep-milk wedge.

In the US it is one of the easier Italian cheeses to find: Whole Foods, Wegmans, most Italian delis and every decent cheese counter carry it, usually in vacuum-packed wedges. Expect 10 to 17 dollars per pound. Look for 'latte di pecora' or 'sheep's milk' on the label, because American-made versions are often cow's milk and taste blander and flatter.

In the UK, Italian delicatessens and online importers stock it, and larger Waitrose and Sainsbury's branches sometimes list it seasonally. Prices run roughly £16 to £26 per kilo.

What to check at the counter: it should be uniformly white with no yellow shading at the edges, firm to the press, and marked with the ridges of the draining basket. Ask how long it has been aged: under three months it is soft and underdeveloped, over six it is rock hard and only good for grating, which may be exactly what you want.

Catania, first and without argument. Pasta alla Norma is the city's dish, named after Bellini's opera, and the trattorias around the Pescheria fish market grate the ricotta salata at the table. If the cheese arrives pre-grated in a bowl, you are in the wrong place.

The mountain dairies of the Nebrodi and Madonie ranges (Castelbuono, Mistretta, Petralia Sottana, San Fratello) sell direct and let you taste ricotta salata alongside its two Sicilian relatives: ricotta infornata, baked until the surface browns, and ricotta affumicata, cold-smoked.

In Palermo, the Capo and Ballarò markets cut it to order from whole wheels, and the stallholders will tell you the milk and the age without being asked twice. Across the island, any restaurant serving pasta con le sarde or maccheroni with pork ragù will have it on the table.