Home-Made Mozzarella
Ingredients:
- 1 gallon goat milk (Note: we use fresh, organic milk from the dairy goats here at the farm. You can use cow's milk, but whatever you use it needs to be WHOLE and unpasteurized... or at the very least not ultra-pasteurized.)
- 1/2 tablespoon citric acid
- 1/4 cup water
- 10 drops double-strength vegetable rennet (OR 20 drops regular strength rennet)*
Instructions:
-Continue heating milk & citric acid mix until it reaches 88° F. Stir in 1/4 c water mixed with 10 drops vegetable rennet.
-Continue stirring until mixture reaches 100°-105° F and begins to thicken.
-Separate whey (liqiud) and curds (should look like cottage cheese). Remove the curds and
place in a separate bowl. Drain the whey out by kneading with a spoon or your hands (I'd recommend gloves). Tip: the more whey you remove from the cheese, the longer the cheese will last. Microwave the cheese for 1 minute, then continue draining whey, and then microwave in smaller increments as needed (ex: if there's still whey in it but it's loosing elasticity).
-Once the cheese is satisfyingly stretchy and as much of the whey is removed as possible, drop it into cold water until it becomes firm.
Viola! You have home made mozzarella!!
*Rennet is naturally found in the linings of dead calf and goat stomachs. I use vegetable rennet because I'm a vegetarian, and the two are interchangeable.
Posts
Can you use regular rennet? I heard that a lot of vegetable rennet is GMO.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know if you can find corn free citric acid?
ReplyDeleteWhat about rennet tablets? What would be the equivalent to 10 drops?
ReplyDeleteWhere does one buy regular rennet? And corn-free citric acid?
ReplyDeleteCan't it be done without microwaving? Nuking real food just does not make sense to me!
But making my own Mozzarella sounds wonderful :)
Blessings...
Thanks for the great questions!
ReplyDelete@Ann Marie: Yes, you can use regular rennet. We use vegetable rennet because we're vegetarians. :) Thistle is a naturally occurring form of rennet, so if you can find it (online, probably)... that would be a safe bet.
@Anonymous: I don't know about the citric acid, but you can contact the Dairy Connection, cheesemaking.com, and Frontier Co-op for their sources.
@Shannon: If you have standard-strength tablets (1 part to 15,000 parts), 1/4 of a tablet is equal to 10 drops double strength rennet, or 1/4 tsp regular rennet. You may need to play around with your amounts depending on how chewy you like your cheese!
@Ann Duncan: It's easiest to order rennet online. I recommend cheesemaking.com . And it is a lot of fun to make! It's also surprisingly easy.
Let me know if you have any more questions! :)
Also, I just remembered: yes, you can heat up the cheese on the stovetop instead of in the microwave... It's just a little trickier-- be careful not to melt it! You just want to heat it up enough so that it stays in one piece.
ReplyDelete