by Bex
I recently had a fantastic evening making mozzarella with D from adizzygirl. We'd both pinned recipes for this project on Pinterest and decided to get together and actually make it happen. It's supposedly the easiest cheese to make and I suspect it is (if you understand the instructions correctly - see later!) although I've never made any other kind of cheese.
We used the above recipe but having both also pinned the one below, wish we used this one in retrospect.
The top recipe had quantities and an easy layout and explanation. The bottom one when I went back to read it after, actually explains things a bit clearer, especially the final stages. I'll definitely be trying this again to try to get a better result but we still ended up with a delicious cheese at the end of it :)
Initially we did it completely wrong! The instructions were American and we didn't realise that when it said 90 degrees, it meant farenheit which is 32°C. Oops. So after waiting ages and getting quite bored waiting for our first 8 pints of milk to get hot enough without burning, eventually going nice and frothy and smelling like lovely hot milk you'd drink before bed, it left us wondering why it wasn't separating and going hard when we added the rennet. Nik explained that we were numpties and it was supposed to be Farenheit. D'oh! Thank goodness he was there!
Cue us going to the local shop for more milk, and thank goodness we hadn't used the Buffalo milk we considered (until noticing that it would cost £12 as opposed to £3 for normal cow's milk!) as it would have been such a waste! Anyway, once we had the temperature correct, it all went pretty well and even though it wasn't perfect, we did end up with edible and quite delicious Mozzarella by the end!
Ingredients:
1 Gallon whole milk (about 8 pints)
1 tsp citric acid (found in my local halal shop)
1/4 rennet tablet (found in Wholefoods - we had liquid rather than tablets and figured out we needed to add ten drops per pint of milk)
2 tsp cheese salt (also found in Wholefoods - this is basically just salt without iodine in it, such as Kosher salt)
I think this is where we went wrong, we thought it was starting to look stringy but in retrospect and after seeing the pictures on the other blog, I don't think we had the cheese hot enough.
I recently had a fantastic evening making mozzarella with D from adizzygirl. We'd both pinned recipes for this project on Pinterest and decided to get together and actually make it happen. It's supposedly the easiest cheese to make and I suspect it is (if you understand the instructions correctly - see later!) although I've never made any other kind of cheese.
We used the above recipe but having both also pinned the one below, wish we used this one in retrospect.
The top recipe had quantities and an easy layout and explanation. The bottom one when I went back to read it after, actually explains things a bit clearer, especially the final stages. I'll definitely be trying this again to try to get a better result but we still ended up with a delicious cheese at the end of it :)
Initially we did it completely wrong! The instructions were American and we didn't realise that when it said 90 degrees, it meant farenheit which is 32°C. Oops. So after waiting ages and getting quite bored waiting for our first 8 pints of milk to get hot enough without burning, eventually going nice and frothy and smelling like lovely hot milk you'd drink before bed, it left us wondering why it wasn't separating and going hard when we added the rennet. Nik explained that we were numpties and it was supposed to be Farenheit. D'oh! Thank goodness he was there!
Cue us going to the local shop for more milk, and thank goodness we hadn't used the Buffalo milk we considered (until noticing that it would cost £12 as opposed to £3 for normal cow's milk!) as it would have been such a waste! Anyway, once we had the temperature correct, it all went pretty well and even though it wasn't perfect, we did end up with edible and quite delicious Mozzarella by the end!
Ingredients:
1 Gallon whole milk (about 8 pints)
1 tsp citric acid (found in my local halal shop)
1/4 rennet tablet (found in Wholefoods - we had liquid rather than tablets and figured out we needed to add ten drops per pint of milk)
2 tsp cheese salt (also found in Wholefoods - this is basically just salt without iodine in it, such as Kosher salt)
I've included pictures of every step so you'll know if it's going the way it should!
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| 1 gallon fresh whole milk |
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| Sprinkle over 1 tsp of citric acid |
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| Stir occasionally and heat to 32°C (90°F) |
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| Remove from heat, add rennet, stir and leave for 8-10 minutes. |
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| Milk should now be solid like jelly - slice into a grid pattern. |
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| Stir gently for 20-30 seconds |
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| Remove the curds with a slotted spoon, leaving behind as much of the whey as possible. (We found my sieve spoon and little sieves much easier and quicker.) |
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| Place curds into a microwaveable bowl. |
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| Heat in the microwave for 1 minute, stir and drain off any more liquid. |
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| Heat for 35-45 seconds more, stir and pour off any further liquid. |
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| The cheese should start to stick together and look more stringy, if not you can heat for another 35-45 seconds. |
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| Once the curds are sticking together and you have removed most of the whey, add the cheese salt in increments, kneading as you go to incorporate it. At this point the cheese starts to become more stringy and sticks together better. |
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| After the salt is incorporated, heat the cheese for another 35-45 seconds until it is stretchy like taffy. Again, I don't think we heated it enough as I'm not sure it was stretchy enough at this stage. It should be really hot so you'll probably need gloves to work with it. |
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| Which meant as we pulled and stretched it, instead of going smooth, we got this when we tried to shape it into a log on the worktop. |
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| We heated it again and managed to smooth it a bit. |
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| Add cheese to a bowl of ice water for 5 minutes to firm up. |
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| Our finished product - it definitely looks homemade! ;) |
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| We served it with fresh sourdough bread, tomatoes, basil and olive oil. |
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| Delish! |
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| It looked like mozzarella on the inside! :) |
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| Nik decided to try it on bruschetta |
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| It was a bit more like Halloumi when grilled. |
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| We decided to store it in the whey as it looks like the stuff mozzarella usually comes in when you buy it?! |
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| Lots of whey left over, Nik said he found some recipes you can use it in, such as certain types of bread but we ended up throwing it out. |
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1 comment:
I quite like that you explained it did not go perfectly. That makes it seem more approachable. I'm not a big mozzarella fan so am unlikely to try it but fascinated by the process anyway.
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