Homemade Mozzarella

[semperfiona]

Last night lavendargrrl came bouncing into the TV room. There was air between her feet and the floor. Seriously. "I know what we're doing tomorrow night!" She showed off the recipe in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: "Thirty-Minute Mozzarella".

ohari scooped me and has already posted about the process. Results were quite gratifyingly tasty.



We also purchased a book, Making Artisan Cheeses, and tried to take our leftover whey and turn it into ricotta cheese using the recipe from that book. That experiment, however, was a failure: we got no curds at all.

Comments

[amberite.livejournal.com]

Scooped you in a locked post. Now I'm really curious what it takes -- as I'm in China, and cheese is expensive, but milk isn't as much! :-)

[semperfiona]

Yeah, he set his journal default to friends-only when the whole "adult content" BS went down. Anyway, here's his summation. If you can get rennet and citric acid (maybe a care package from home if necessary) it's really easy (and might be a fun class activity):

Finding the non-milk ingredients wasn't hard, but time consuming. We went to our local Dierberg's market for Oberwies whole milk (In Glass!) and powdered Rennet (Between canning and baking, FYI). We had to go to a local Beer and Wine making store for powdered Citric Acid, but that was no hill to a stepper, and we were home with Squishy picked up in two hours. This is how it went: One - Sterilize everything. We did this the easy way, filled the pot to be used with water, put everything else to be used in it and boiled the crap out of it. Two - Mix reagents. 1.5 teaspoons Citric acid dissolved in .25 Cup cool water. One Rennet tablet dissolved in .25 Cup cool water. Three - Milk. Pour milk in sterile dry stock pot and heat slowly to 55 degrees F. Add Citric acid. Heat to 88 Degrees F, curdling should be happening (it wasn't, add additional 1 teaspoon Acid), add Rennet. Continue to heat to 101F, whey should clarify (it did), remove heat. Four - Curds and whey. Remove Curds from whey and place in a 2-qt microwaveable bowl (we used a strainer to lift the curds, a slotted spoon was too slow). Nuke one minute. Knead. Drain. Nuke 30 seconds. Knead. Drain. Nuke 30 seconds. Knead. Scream in burning agony. Drain. Salt. Knead. Nuke another 30 seconds. Knead in short shifts, it's freaking hot! Repeat until curds will pull like taffy. Pull cheese like taffy. If it stops being taffy like, reheat. When you like the consistency, stop and roll cheese into balls for storage. Seek treatment for burns. Taste test. Yum!

[tempesttea.livejournal.com]

You guys have got to quit you are making my mouth water. It is CRUEL, I tell you CRUEL!!!