🧀 Pecorino Siciliano

Pecorino Siciliano is an Italian PDO cheese, semi-cooked and made from raw whole sheep's milk. The sheep must be kept, the milk produced and the cheese made and aged in Sicily ⁴. The name has been protected in the EU since 1996 ¹²; the consortium dates its protection back to 1955 ⁵.

The sheep may be of different breeds or crosses and graze natural or cultivated pasture. At least 80% of their forage dry matter over the year must come from Sicily. Silage, animal-derived feed, fenugreek, tapioca and manioc are banned ⁴.

Milk from one or two milkings is processed within 24 hours. It is warmed to no more than 40 °C and poured into a wooden vat, where 10–30 g of paste rennet from Sicilian suckling lambs per 100 litres is added at 36–40 °C. After 40–50 minutes the curd is broken with a wooden stick to the size of a rice grain, with water at 70–90 °C added, then pressed by hand in rush baskets ⁴.

The whey is first used to make ricotta, and the baskets then cook in that hot whey for 3–4 hours in wooden vats. The wheels are turned and given a casein mark, firm up for 24–48 hours, and are salted dry and/or in brine. They age at 14–18 °C and over 75% humidity on untreated wooden shelves ⁴.

There are three types. Fresco is aged 20–30 days, has no true rind, weighs 3–5 kg and tastes sweet, with pasture aromas. Semistagionato has a thin straw-yellow rind and the same weight; the specification gives 45–90 days in one article and 60–90 in another. Stagionato is aged at least 120 days, weighs 6–14 kg and tastes piquant. Black peppercorns are allowed only in the first two, and all have at least 40% fat in dry matter ⁴.

Each wheel has an oval casein mark with the type, a number and the Trinacria, and Stagionato also gets a branded mark after 120 days. Words such as "extra", "superiore" or "selected" may not be added to the name, and pre-packed portions must include part of the rind or face. Cutting and packing may take place outside Sicily ⁴.

Why it matters to you. Choose by type: Fresco is sweet, Stagionato piquant ⁴. Check the casein mark, and be wary of "extra" or "selected" beside the name ⁴. All types are raw-milk cheeses. The NHS lists only hard cheeses as safe in pregnancy when unpasteurised, and any cheese cooked until steaming hot ⁶. So in pregnancy young Fresco is best cooked ⁶.