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Cheese from Italy, Campania, province of Salerno, the whole Cilento

Cacioricotta caprino del CilentoCasorecotta re crapa

Cacioricotta caprino del Cilento is a goat's-milk cheese made by first heating the milk to near boiling, so the whey proteins set, then cooling it to about 37 °C and adding kid rennet to set the casein. It is part cheese (cacio) and part ricotta. The curd is packed into baskets and dried, and eaten fresh after a few days or aged up to four months for grating.

Fully documentedCheese3.1 days – 4 monthsCampania traditional food product (PAT); Slow Food PresidiumFamily: Whey-cooked rennet curd family (halloumi type)

Recipe

Amounts from a sourceThe regional sheet gives no amounts; ONAF gives the rennet dose of 40–50 g per hectolitre of milk.
Fresh whole goat milkGoat milk only[pat-sheet]
Kid rennet paste40–50 g per hl of milkMade by the herder from a kid's abomasum air-dried for 30–40 days, pounded and kept under olive oil[pat-sheet][onaf-sheet]
Acid whey from the previous day's make[onaf-sheet]
Cooking saltDry-salted, when salted[onaf-sheet]
Starteracid whey from the previous day's make is added (ONAF sheet)

Total time across the recorded steps: 3.1 days – 4 months

Start
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85–90 °C

What changes: Goat's milk is heated almost to boiling, so its whey proteins set

Step 1 of 7
Heat the milk to near boiling
Time
Not documented
Temperature
85–90 °C
Reported
Salt
None given
Acidity
Not documented

The regional sheet says the milk is brought to the boil; ONAF gives 85–90 °C.

Flavour
Not documented
Texture
Not documented
Colour
Not documented

Microbes at work in this step

the heat sets the whey proteins

Method

Measured measured in a studySet fixed by a specification or tested recipeReported one source reports itTypical a general value, not sourced for this fermentUnconfirmed not yet checked against a source

At a glance

Cacioricotta caprino del Cilento is a goat's-milk cheese made by first heating the milk to near boiling, so the whey proteins set, then cooling it to about 37 °C and adding kid rennet to set the casein. It is part cheese (cacio) and part ricotta. The curd is packed into baskets and dried, and eaten fresh after a few days or aged up to four months for grating. Made in 7 steps over 3.1 days – 4 months. The longest step, eat fresh or age, takes 2 days – 4 months (ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori F…).

Key numbers
Main step2 days – 4 monthsReported[onaf-sheet]Eat fresh or age
Temperature85–90 °CReported[onaf-sheet]Heat the milk to near boiling

What makes this one different

The milk is heated close to boiling before renneting, so whey proteins set along with the casein and the cheese is part ricotta. Cilento's is made only from goat's milk, all year.

Rind
None when fresh; aged rind thin to slightly thick, fairly hard to hard. Rough surface with basket marks
Size
1.5–2.5 kg; cylinder 13–24 cm across, 4–7 cm high

Related ferments

Variants

  • Fresh2–3 to 30 days, salted or not; soft and white.
  • AgedAlways salted; 2–4 months; hard and gratable.
  • Montano Antilia and LauritoHeat cycle 10–20 minutes longer.

Safety

Heating the milk to 85–90 °C comes before the rennet, but the curd is then handled in open baskets. In a challenge test on goat cacioricotta, E. coli O157:H7 added after the milk had cooled to 37 °C grew about 10,000-fold in the first week and was still present after 90 days. The authors say 90 °C heat kills it, so the risk is contamination after heating. Ageing does not remove it, so clean hands and tools matter.

Hazards the sources name: Escherichia coli O157:H7, added after the heat step, which grew and survived making and 90 days of ripening in a challenge test on goat cacioricotta; Staphylococcus aureus, named in the regional notes as a risk of using raw milk.

History and sources

Every number is labelled with how it is known. How this atlas is made

ONAF notes the near-boiling method works only with goat or sheep milk, since cow's milk heated this hot no longer sets well with rennet. The Cilentana goat is kept mainly for meat, and almost all the cheese made from its milk is cacioricotta.

  1. [pat-sheet] Regione Campania, Prodotti tradizionali, Cacioricotta caprino del Cilento (updated 13 March 2015; copy hosted by ONAF)gov
  2. [ioanna2018] Ioanna F., Quaglia N.C., Storelli M.M. et al. 2018, Survival of Escherichia coli O157:H7 during the manufacture and ripening of Cacioricotta goat cheese, Food Microbiology 70, 200–205 (abstract)paper
  3. [celano2022] Celano G., Costantino G., Calasso M. et al. 2022, Distinctive traits of four Apulian Traditional Agri-Food Product (TAP) cheeses manufactured at the same dairy plant, Foods 11, 425 (abstract)paper
  4. [onaf-sheet] ONAF (Organizzazione Nazionale Assaggiatori Formaggi), Cacioricotta caprino del Cilento cheese sheet, with the Regione Campania notesweb