You can do this: Make Mozzarella

When I hit the brick wall the other day, I was on my way to a cheese class to learn how to make mozzarella. I made my first batch on Sunday when we got back from camping. It took about 45 minutes, including the time to heat the milk. It was easy and delicious. Here's how it's done. Note: I used pictures from the web for illustration purposes, I didn't take them.

What you need:

Gallon of whole milk (grocery store is fine, skim also works but you get a lower yield)

Pot to hold the milk

Citric acid (in bulk spice aisle of grocery store; juice of 3-4 lemons also works)

Rennet (sold as tablets in pudding/baking aisle of grocery store)

Slotted spoon or sieve

Thermometer

Heat

Instructions:

1. Heat gallon of whole milk over medium heat.

2. Disslove 1.5 teaspoons of citric acid in a 1/4 cup cold water. Add to milk when temperature hits around 55.

3. Dissolve a half tablet of rennet in a 1/4 cup cold water. When milk hits 90 degrees, add rennet to milk and briefly/slowly stir to combine.

4. Allow to sit until the curds separate from the whey (~5-10 minutes...they whey looks like yellowy water.....If it's not working after a decent amount of time, you can add a little bit more lemon juice or rennet.




5. Use a slotted spoon or sieve to strain out curds. Put the curds in a microwave safe bowl. Here's a picture of what the cheese curds look like at this point.




6. Add 1 teaspoon of salt.

7. Nuke for one minute and then strain whey out. Poke with a wooden spoon to get more whey out. They say to work the cheese your hands, but it gets hot! So I just kept kneading for about 30 seconds with a wooden spoon. Here's a picture as the curds are coming together:




8. Repeat step 6 two more times. The goal is two-fold: first, to remove the whey and second, to get the cheese curds to about 135, which is perfect for stretching. After the third time, the texture will visibly change. Here's a pretty picture of what the stretching looks like:




9. Using your hands, shape the cheese into a ball.



10. Eat. It's best warm or on the first day but it lasts up to a week. Mine lasted less than a day (due to hungry Roko's, not spoilage). We made pizza with it, ate it straight and I took the last bits of it for lunch the next day. Delicious.

For more detailed instructions, check out these photo instructions on making mozzarella.