Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Cheeeeeese!

I am pleased to announce that I am awesome at cheese making! :-) We can't usually get mozzarella cheese in Bissau and Jason and I really miss it! I found out that it's not really very hard to make it - unlike cheddar, provolone, swiss, etc it doesn't have to age in a 55 degree cave for months on end. In fact you can start with milk and two hours later be eating delicious mozzarella!

I got a kit from www.cheesemaking.com so that I could try it out and hopfully perfect my technique before we head back, and it worked! I've only done it twice so far and the first time it turned out pretty creamy, more like cream cheese; but the second time it was perfect! I took a few pictures of the process, so check it out!

I bought milk from Kroger, mixed in the citric acid, and heated it up on the stove


Once it got to 90 degrees I added the rennet, heated it a little more, then let it sit so the curd could form. Once the curd was pretty solid I cut it up, put it back on the heat and waited 'till it got to about 110 degrees.


I thought about trying it, but it didn't really look very appatizing...


Despite it's somewhat gross appearance I had faith! I drained off the whey, added salt, and then heated it in the microwave carefully to 135 degrees


At this point I was starting to doubt that it would all come together since the only step I had left was to stretch it like taffy. Majically, as I started stretching, the cheese came together. This step was definitely the most fun part of all!


Nice huh?