Homemade Cheese...Harder Than You Think

We're pretty sure that we've mentioned cheese many, many, many times throughout this blog. So it is to no surprise that we would eventually find the opportunity to delve into the art of CHEESEMAKING. Thanks to Matt's sister Jenny, for Christmas she got Matt his very own mozzarella cheese making kit from Roaring Brook Dairy. You can only imagine how excited Matt was at the prospect of making cheese at home.

Seeing as we gave up meat for Lent this year, we have had to be VERY creative when cooking for every day meals and especially for special occasions. I hate to admit this, but we have an annual WRESTLEMANIA watch (yes it is true, and it's glorious - go ROCK 2012  [clearly this is Matt speaking]). So this year, with our lack of meat, Matt decided to break open into the Roaring Brook Dairy kit and make homemade mozzarella for a variety of mozzarella based appetizers and salads.

You may not think it, but making homemade cheese is MUCH harder than the directions made it seem (their tagline of "homemade mozzarella in under an hour" is a bit of a reach - maybe after you've done it a few times). A couple of lessons learned:

- Cheese curds (the real ones not the fried ones) are very delicate. Do not over stir the curds, Do not stir the curds too forcefully.

- Temperature is important. Overheating the milk can cause the curds to disintegrate and then its very hard to separate them from the whey.

- Although organic milk would seem to be best, we had a better product when using regular milk (i.e. Dean's), but this was our second try.

- Chicago tap water is not conducive for cheesemaking. Make sure to use filtered or bottled water for dissolving citric acid and rennet tablet.

After 2 batches we ended up with some pretty good mozzarella cheese (pictured below). We definitely plan to make another batch soon as we continue to hone our cheesemaking skills. We may even be selling batches soon so keep your eye out for that, or go for our favorite store brands, BelGioioso or the local fresh stuff from our local Italian deli, Bari. Also we recently had some really good mozzarella dishes at a new local Chicago hot spot, RPM Italian. Any way you have it, be sure to keep mozzarella a cornerstone of a cheese filled diet. Happy eating.

Homemade Mozzarella (4.1.12)

Caprese Salad with Homemade Mozzarella