Formaggio Fabrication: Prima Parte

As per Friday's plan, this weekend I embarked on the second cheesemaking venture of my life: the manufacturing of home-made mozzarella from two different recipes and procedures.

First up: the scheme laid out by Jeff Potter in Cooking for Geeks. Following his outline to the letter for my first batch of formaggio, I proceeded thusly:

I dissolved one-half teaspoon of calcium chloride in two tablespoons of cool sterilized water (from the kettle) and set it aside.

I dissolved one-quarter of a vegetarian rennet tablet in four tablespoons of water (see above) and set that aside, too.

I poured one gallon of raw whole milk (provided by the Jersey cows of Keepsake Farms: thank you, ladies!) into my spaghetti pot and plopped in my candy thermometer.

I retrieved a few tablespoons of the milk and dissolved in them one and one-half teaspoons of citric acid and one-quarter teaspoon of lipase. I returned the milk/citric acid/lipase mixture to the pot and slowly brought the contents up to 88 deg F, stirring frequently:

Small curds began to form almost immediately:

When the milk reached the required temperature of 88 deg F, I added the calcium chloride and rennet mixtures. I continued to heat the milk to 105 deg F, stirring occasionally as per Jeff's instructions (such stirring is an important difference between the two procedures: further details about this vital topic will be provided in a later post). At 105 deg F, I had large-curd formation at the bottom of the pot:

I removed the pan from the heat, covered it with a lid, and waited for twenty minutes. At the end of the waiting period, I had serious curds and whey:

I strained the result through my cheesecloth, which has been getting a pretty good workout lately, let me tell you:

I squeezed out as much whey as I could, and transferred the curds to a microwave-safe bowl. I microwaved the cheese for  45 seconds, until it was warm and sticky. I added one teaspoon of cheese salt and kneaded it in, squeezing out more whey in the process:

Employing thirty-second bursts, I microwaved the curd ball. I took its internal temperature at each juncture until a temperature of 130 deg F was achieved. The cheese became melty and creamy:

At this point, Jeff's instructions direct the casara (that's Italian for lady cheesemaker, you know) to knead the cheese until it becomes stringy, which I duly did:

Unfortunately, I knew before I was finished that I had overworked the finished product, because it didn't really want to make itself into a cohesive ball, although for a first-ever mozzarella, I was extremely pleased. It reminded me of the fresh stringy cheese we used to buy years ago, packaged in plastic bags and floating in whey, at our local Italian deli:

The cheese was moist (though it became a little bit rubbery as it sat) and the taste fresh and delicious. We tried it various ways - naturalmente, with salt, with olive oil, with a bit of good balsamic, and sprinkled with house-dried thyme from the garden. Before we knew it, we'd eaten the entirety of one of the two 8 ounce balls.

Athough I had originally intended to move on immediately to the second recipe/procedure, I decided to first repeat this experiment, with less working of the curds as follows:

• instead of kneading the salt in as a separate step, I went immediately to the 130 deg F heat and mixed the salt in during the final stage
• instead of vigorous kneading such as one might perpetrate on bread dough, I gently flopped the curds around until just stringy, then quickly formed them in a ball

The result of these modifications was fairly awesome:

Much softer, moister, and less rubbery than the first batch, we ate the fresh cheese until, quite honestly, we felt slightly unwell.

It was gorgeous.

Coming soon: I report on a different recipe and procedure, as provided by Ricky 'The Cheese Queen' Carroll, and discuss issues arising.