Now Here's Something We Hope You'll Really Like!

Today the kids had the day off. Since it was raining and I wasn't up to taking the gaggle of them somewhere, we had friends over. We made valentines and played Wii and listened to the Wicked soundtrack, and then I promised the girls that we could make cheese.
Jeff and Saydi gave us a cheesemaking kit and I'd tried it twice before. Here, for the benefit of anyone else trying to make 30 min. mozarella, is what we did. You dissolve the rennet in 1/4 cup of water. Separately dissolve 1 1/2 tsp in a cup of water. Pour one gallon of milk (pasteurized but not ultra pasteurized) into a stainless steel pan and stir in the citric acid. Heat to 90 degrees, then take off the heat and stir in the rennet. I let it sit about 8 minutes (instead of 5). Then you have to slice the curds, which is what the girls are doing here. Called something else if you are a schoolage boy.
Stir slowly until curds reach 105 degrees. It turns back into this watery mess.

Then I departed from the directions. I drained the curds about 3/4 in this wire mesh strainer lined with cheese cloth. Take the curds and put them in a microwaveable bowl and microwave for 1 minute. Drain any whey you can off, then microwave 30 seconds more. Test the temperature. When it's 135 degrees, you are ready to stretch the cheese. Put on your rubber gloves -- it's hot!
I departed again at this point and dumped the cheese out into the mesh strainer while stretching it, both to let the liquid drain out and to let it cool down faster. I don't really know what I'm doing with the stretching. I just kind of fold it and stretch it out.

Suddenly it goes from hot cottage or ricotta cheese, to something shiny and smooth. This is the finished product, wrapped in plastic and my saweet cheesemaking gloves.

And here are the leftovers. Smelly yellow whey that makes you question Miss Muffett's sanity. I actually used it last time to make pizza dough and bread. This time I just gave up and made dinner.

Comments

bostonshumways said…
Thanks Mary Ann, I needed a step by step.....my first attempt was a major failure.
8:06 PM
Anonymous said…
Wow!

Whey is in LOTS of products like crackers and cakes, etc. (You find that out when you have a kid who's allergic to it.)
10:52 PM
Anonymous said…
Fascinating! How did the finished product taste? Did Saydi get it from the place in "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"? Love the gloves!
3:03 PM
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