Monday, January 07, 2008

Mozzarella!!!

I made Mozzarella cheese and it tastes good!!

Start with a gallon of whole milk from Trader Joe's. The milk must be either raw or old-fashion pasteurized; it can't be "Ultra Pasteurized".



After careful temperature monitoring and some chemistry and bio work (adding Citric acid and Rennet at the right temps and times), the milk separates into thick curds as shown here...



...and whey (shown here).



Then you spoon out the curds and gently press out excess whey to form a blob. That is the technical term. Then you microwave the blob to raise its temperature, and then you knead it like bread dough. The more you knead it, the more stringy and stratified it becomes. You can also add salt to taste. When happy with the consistency, form it into smaller balls and put in cold water. It's done.



Very fresh Mozzarella and Bruschetta on bread. Yum, yum!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did you save the whey for protein drinks?

Anonymous said...

does it taste goo, like real fresh Mozz you buy?

Anonymous said...

i mean good! : )

Marco Fanelli said...

No, I didn't save the whey, but I'll look into that for the future. Honestly the stuff looks a bit gross to me... but since I'm on a quest for better connection with food and such, I need to overcome it!

And yes, it does (did) taste good. I used more salt than typically is in fresh Mozz so it was kind of inbetween fresh and regular cheese. Will try to perfect as time goes on, and I'll be trying to make some aged cheeses too. (And yogurt and kiefer!)

Karl Ulrich said...

Fresh mozzarella may just be the greatest food ever created. So now, after inspiring me to loose weight, you're inspiring me to go make the very thing that will destroy my will to accomplish what you previously inspired me to do. You're an evil man.

Aram said...

Yeah...I never knew the distinction between "fresh mozz" and "regular mozz". I still don't. To me they are different cheeses, but yeah: nice work!

REALLY looking forward to the Blue's production. I'd happily volunteer if you need a wannabe cheese snob to test it on.