Truffle and Honey Seed Crisps with Whipped Ricotta

1. Tip the ricotta into a sieve lined with kitchen paper and sit it over a bowl for 20 minutes.
2. Put the drained ricotta into a food processor with the olive oil, the lemon zest and the juice.
3. Blitz for a full 2 minutes, stopping twice to scrape the sides down.
4. Season with flaked salt and black pepper, then taste it cold rather than at room temperature.
5. Scrape it into a bowl, cover it and chill it until you are ready to build.
6. Lay the seed crisps out on a board in one layer, close to the time you plan to serve.
7. Spoon a heaped teaspoon of ricotta onto each crisp and drag the back of the spoon through it.
8. Drop a few pieces of chopped truffle nut into the hollow you have just made.
9. Thread the honey over the whole board from a spoon rather than onto each crisp.
10. Scatter the thyme leaves over and serve within 20 minutes.

The twenty minute window, and what else the crisp holds

A topped crisp has about twenty minutes before the moisture from the cheese reaches the middle of it. That is enough for a tray to be handed round and enough for the photographs, and it is not enough to build the board before guests arrive. So split the job. The ricotta whips a day ahead and keeps in the fridge, better in a piping bag than a bowl, and the nuts can be chopped in the morning. Then the build is four minutes of work that you do while somebody else pours.

The same shelf gives you two other directions. Kalamata olive and sun dried tomato seed crisps swap the sweetness for salt, which suits a ricotta with more pepper and no honey at all. Rosemary, raisin and pecan seed crisps go the other way and are the ones to use if you are serving this after dinner rather than before it. For the people who would rather stand at a bowl than hold a plate, a canister of Hunter's Gourmet Quattro Formaggi chips on the same table does that job.

Two live pieces sit either side of this one. The Christmas cheese ball rolled in seed crisps crushes a different crisp into a coating, so it uses the same box in the opposite direction and the two do not repeat. Truffle chips on the grazing table covers the bowl and board side of the same flavour.

Common questions

Can you whip ricotta ahead of time?

A day ahead, easily, and it is better for the rest. Whipped ricotta stiffens a little in the fridge overnight, which makes it hold a shape on a cracker instead of spreading out to the edges. Keep it covered so it does not pick up anything else in there, and give it a short stir before you use it. If it looks wet the next day, that is whey, and draining the tub properly in the first place is what prevents it.

Will the crisps go soft if you top them early?

Yes, and about twenty minutes is the honest window. Anything with moisture in it sitting on a thin baked crisp will soften the middle first, so the crisp bends instead of snapping. Build late, and if you have to prepare early, take the components out separately and let people build their own. A bowl of whipped ricotta, a board of crisps and a saucer of chopped nuts is a better table than twenty four soft ones.

What else goes on a seed crisp?

Anything thick and cold. Whipped feta with lemon, a smoked fish pate, blue cheese mashed with butter, or a spoonful of thick Greek yoghurt with olive oil and pepper. The rule is not the flavour, it is the consistency: wet toppings run through and soften the crisp, so drain, whip or mash until whatever you are using sits where you put it.

VPC Valley Seed Crisps Truffle & Honey is $6.95 for a 150g box, which is one board with a few crisps left for the cook. It sits with the rest of the Valley Produce Company range on our crackers shelf, alongside the other truffle products and the festive entertaining essentials. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100.