So. You’re in a mood for some romance. And who isn’t? You decide to surprise your lovely wife with a nice lasagna…made from scratch…with mozzarella and ricotta that you’ve made by hand.
Yes. Love is in the air. Put on the Andrea Bocelli and let’s get to the cheese making.
(Up until now we’ve made cheese without special ingredients, but this is where you’ll need to start buying things like rennet and citric acid. Note that there is no substitute for rennet. And you really don’t want to make it yourself, unless you happen to have a bunch of calf stomachs laying around. Check out Leeners.com or Cheesemaking.com for cheese supplies. Don’t use Junket Rennet.)
INGREDIENTS
- 1 gallon fresh milk (ps. Find a cow or refrigerated milk. This won’t work with UHT shelf milk.)
- 1.5 teaspoons citric acid (Find at your local food supply company. It’s been said 3/4c lemon juice will substitute, but I haven’t tried this.)
- 1/4 teaspoon liquid rennet or 1/4 tablet rennet diluted in 1/3 cup cool water
- 1 teaspoon cheese salt (to taste)
DIRECTIONS
Stir the citric acid into cold milk.
Heat the milk.
When the milk reaches roughly 91F, add the rennet and stir so the rennet is dispersed throughout the pot of milk (both top and bottom).
Continue heating until 100F or so. Turn off the heat when you see the curds pulling away from the sides of the pot. The whey (the clear liquid on the side) should be pretty clear, not milky, otherwise wait a couple more minutes.
Scoop out the curds with a slotted ladle (we use our jiaozi scoop) into a bowl.
Gently press out the whey from the curds with your hands.
From here you have two options. Microwave the cheese for 1 minute. Or dip the cheese into 175F whey for a couple seconds. Then knead the curds with a wooden spoon to squeeze out more whey.
Microwave (for half a minute this time) or dip the cheese twice more in hot whey, kneading and squeezing more whey out each time. The third time add the salt.
You’ll notice that the consistency of the cheese becomes stretchy like a good mozzarella. Pretty neat, eh? Watch your spouse melt before your eyes. Ah-yeah!
You may use immediately or cool the cheese down in ice water and store for up to a week in the fridge.
oh my goodness!! i have to order these supplies so i can try this myself! amazing! Are you just jumping up and down with joy?
I’m germinating Nasturtium seeds in my kitchen as I type! I’m a little nervous about them because they like to be 12″ apart. I’m not sure our window seal has that much room, but we’ll see how they do. They like poor soil which is a plus for us! More garden scoop soon…
Shorel: That’s the Italian in your spouse. Mom
Kurt will be jealous. It sounds really good!
~~~Kurt & Heather