Been a long time coming, bought the kit to make cheese probably 18 months ago….found the time and patience to try my first Mozzarella.
I am very pleased with my first go, however, it is quite fiddly and definitely needs a good thermometer to get the cheese to behave as expected.
I was inspired to make some for myself by Alex.
Ingredients :
- 8 Pints or 5.5L of Whole Milk (the blue bottles in the UK)
- 11g Citric Acid (on amazon / might try Lemon Juice someday)
- 1/4 Rennet Tablet (Check with tablet manufacturer but this would be plenty enough)
- Salt for seasoning and optionally Herbs to give a different flavour
How to make :
Put the cold milk in a large casserole and put on medium heat to avoid burning the bottom of the milk. (use Fresh whole milk (pasteurized))
I use 2 UK size jugs of milk of 4 pints each for a total of 8pints or 5.5Liters
As the milk is heating up put the citric acid into the casserole. The dosage is 2g citric acid for each litre of milk. Dilute the citric acid into / 1/4 cup water.
Warm the milk on a soft flame to 32 degrees celsius mixing gently to avoid hot spots
Once you reached the target temperature, a quarter of a tablet of rennet diluted in water. Stir the liquid into the milk gently for 30 seconds.
Time to wait. Let the milk/curd rest for 30 minutes until you can create a clean break with your finger in the curd that has started in the casserole. You can wait 45 minutes if a “clean break” does not happen immediately. Ideally, we want the milk to stay warm at 32 degrees so do not leave the casserole in a cold place.
Cut some criss-cross through the curd, approximately 3 cm apart from each other. Then put back on the medium heat and bring the curd up to 43 celsius. Stay at 43 degrees for 5 minutes. All the curd should separate nicely. Spin the curd gently for an even heat distribution but do not break the curd pieces to avoid a big mess.
Using a slotted spoon transfer the curd to a colander to drain the “petit lait” (weigh). Be gentle try to work the colander in circles to remove the “weigh” from the curd.
This technique will be used again later when the curd is super hot (82 degrees) from the microwave.
Slide the “dry” curd and transfer into a wide container which can go in the microwave.
Put curd in the microwave oven on full heat and heat up until the curd is at 82 degrees. This is the temperature were the curd will be warm enough to make elastic strands and will accept to be shaped like kneading bread dough. I tend to split the main curd into smaller batches (4) to make it easier to heat-up and handle.
This is very hot to handle so have running cold water for your fingers. Knead the cheese as you would do with bread dough. Gently. Try to roll into a ball with a tuck-in technique. Some people use gloves for this part to avoid getting burns on their fingers. I find the cold running water method simple. If the curd is at the right temperature it will go stringy and make a shiny ball. This is the point you add the salt or other spices to give a taste to the mozzarella. I prefer just salt.
If you do not get to a shiny ball, it is because you did not heat-up enough the curd in the microwave. Try again. All is not lost yet…
Once you have the balls shaped, put into the fridge. BUT !…make sure you wrap each one in cling film to avoid them going to dry….made that mistake….
Enjoy!
Update :
Although the first Mozzarella was nice and tasty, I think I should have stretched it a lot more. I should have brought the temperature of the cheese higher (a proper 82 degrees) so that it would “really” stretch and create those stringy lines within the Mozzarella. Also, putting the balls into cling film is a must to avoid the drying off.
