Mozzarella
This is the easiest cheese. It only takes a little bit of time and a few ingredients. In just about half an hour, you’ll have the best, melty cheese that retains a lot of the raw qualities of the your fresh milk!
When I went to make mozzarella, I was at first intimidated, but it’s so easy! My shaping leaves a lot to be desired, but I need to invest in some kitchen gloves as I often can’t get the cheese hot enough to shape well while also still being able to handle it. So my pictures are ugly, but hopefully I’ll update down the road with beautiful pictures of amazing cheese.
It’s all really straight forward. You can use liquid rennet or rennet in tablet form. I tried with lemon instead of citric acid, but it did NOT work. So despite the arguments against it, it is critical to the success of your cheese.
If you try this, let me know! Eat it as is or add to recipes like our simple grilled pizza or summer lasagna.
Mozzarella
Ingredients:
1 1/2 teaspoon citric acid
1/4 teaspoon animal rennet (liquid or 1/4 tablet)
1/2 cup water, divided
1 gallon raw milk (best with all the cream, but still good if you skim some of the cream for butter or coffee or other recipes)
salt
Instructions:
Dissolve the citric acid in 1/4 cup of the water. Add to a large pot. Dissolve the rennet tablet or the liquid rennet in the other 1/4 cup of water. Set the rennet aside.
In the pot with the citric acid water, add the gallon of milk. Heat the milk until it reaches 90 degrees F. Pour in the rennet water. Stir gently with an up and down motion rather than swirling. Set the pot aside without touching it for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, the curd should be formed. With a long knife that reaches the bottom of the pan, cut the curd into a grid shape. Stir the curds for about 2 minutes.
Pour the cheese into a large, fine strainer. Save the whey if you want for cooking other things in if you want. Press the extra whey out of your curds.
In a larger than your strainer pot, heat up water until it’s quite hot, but not boiling. Around 185 F. Dip your strainer with your curds in the hot water. With clean hands, stretch the cheese. Continue to repeat the dunking and stretching until the cheese becomes firm and shiny. After it has firmed up, salt it to taste. While the cheese is warm, form it into the shape that you desire. I usually do logs or balls.
Put the cheese in cold water for about 10 minutes to cool. Drain the water then store in a glass container. Slice and enjoy!
