New Adventures in Food Making

Really? Has it been over a month since I've written? How can that be? Well, the stats don't lie and they say I've been absent for 6 WEEKS. Time flies, eh?

So much has happened in 6 weeks but rather than go through the history, let me tell you about the present.

Today I made homemade mozzarella for the first time.

I knew it was crazy easy but just hadn't gone down that path. I really need to learn to trust myself and just jump. 99% of the time, I realize that most common things are pretty darned easy and the convenience of the grocery store has just made us lazy.

Mozzarella is definitely on the "no brainer" list. A couple of ingredients need to be sought out but with the internet and natural food stores, they aren't difficult to find if you just look.

You'll need citric acid and rennet. My rennet was in tablet form.

Dissolve the citric acid in a cup of "Britta" water. You need to get the chlorine out so it doesn't interfere with the chemistry.

Dissolve 1/4 tablet rennet in 1/2 cup of "Britta" water. (Same reason. It's about the cheese reaction, not a reaction with this chemicals).

Pour 1 gallon of milk (I used Whole) in a big ass pot and put a thermometer in there. Note - I'm told you can't use UHT or Ultra Pasteurized milk because the super high heat has already denatured the proteins and they won't make curds. I haven't tried it myself but it does make sense from a chemistry perspective.

As I was saying... pour 1 gallon of milk into a big ass pot and stir in the citric acid solution. Heat the big ass pot over Med/Low heat until it reaches 90F. (It's critical you use a thermometer.) Don't walk away. This goes pretty quick. You'll want to stir it every minute or so to keep the heat even and prevent scorching.

When it hits 90F, pour in the rennet. Don't stir. Kind of bob a big slotted spoon up and down around the pan to get things mixed well but you don't want to prevent curd formation at this point. Bob it around in there for 30 seconds or so.

Keep heating the big ass pot to 105F. (Make sure you're watching your thermometer). You're going to see it clumping up. Keep bobbing around to keep the heat even in the pot but try not to disturb the curds too much.

Once it hits 105F, remove from the heat and let sit a minute or so.

Using your slotted spoon (or I used a small handheld strainer), remove the curds to a heat resistant microwave safe bowl. (I used a big glass mixing bowl.) You can dump the whey down the drain.

Yes, Miss Muffett, you just made curds and whey!!  The curds will continue to drain the whey. Just keep pouring it off as it pools.

Microwave the curds for 1 minute on 50% power.
Take them out, drain and stir gently. You're just trying to prevent hot spots. You want it all one temperature.

Put them back in the microwave and heat again for 30 seconds at full power.
Take them out, drain and stir gently. Check the temp. We're shooting for 135F so they will "melt" and you can make a big smooth ball out of them.

If your close, keep heating for 30 seconds at a time. My batch took a total of 3 heatings (1 min, 30 sec and 30 sec).

Add 1 1/2 tsp of cheese salt. (Looks like non-iodized table salt to me. Next time I'm trying Kosher flakes instead) Using 2 spoons, fold the cheese over on itself like you're kneading bread. You're trying to get the salt evenly distributed in the cheese. The cheese will wrap itself nicely in to a ball. Drain any left remaining whey, place in a bowl, cover and refrigerate.

You can eat warm if you like but letting it set is better.

The cheese should be pretty loose, like you would expect fresh mozzarella to be. The more you heat and work it, the more stringy it's going to get.

Next time, I'm going to try adding herbs at the stretching stage. I'm also going to see how much stretching it will take and how stringy I can possibly get it. For that, I'll probably get some plastic gloves and really pull it like Taffy until I get my own version of string cheese.

Mine is in the fridge right now. I'll update with the verdict soon.

Enjoy!!