Baked ricotta with olive salad

Anyone who’s been reading my blog for a little while might have probably noticed I’m insanely partial to sweets – don’t get me wrong, I love food as a whole, but desserts ARE the best part of a meal. Don’t you think? :D

As a very responsible person, ahem, I know that one can’t live on cakes, cookies and ice cream – that’s why I’m always searching for delicious savory recipes that will be as much fun to prepare as their sweet counterparts.

I love cooking with ricotta, but what really caught my eye here was the olive salad and the dressing – what a fabulous combination of flavors.

Baked ricotta with olive salad
from Australian Gourmet Traveller

Ricotta:
350g ricotta – I used homemade
2 eggs, separated
75g parmesan, finely grated
pinch of nutmeg, freshly grated

Olive salad:
200g mixed olives
½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes
1 clove garlic, crushed
½ thinly sliced zest of an orange
¼ cup firmly packed flat-leaf parsley leaves, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil*

Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF; grease well four 150ml-capacity well greased ovenproof dishes.

For olive salad, combine olives with chilli, garlic, orange zest, parsley and extra-virgin olive oil, season to taste – I used only freshly ground black pepper since the olives are salty already. Set aside.
Press ricotta through a fine sieve into a bowl – mine was really soft, so I skipped this part; add egg yolks, parmesan and nutmeg and stir to combine. Whisk egg whites in a large bowl until soft peaks form, add to ricotta mixture and gently fold until combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Spoon ricotta into prepared dishes and bake for 15 minutes or until golden – mine needed 25 minutes; they will puff in the oven like soufflés but will deflate.
Stand for 5 minutes, then run a knife around the edges of the molds and unmold the ricotta. Serve warm or at room temperature with the olive salad.

* I used garlic infused olive oil and omitted the garlic clove from the recipe

Serves 4