Everyday Cheesemaking by K. Ruby Blume

Author:K. Ruby Blume
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
Published: 2014-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

Finished Queso Fresco

Filling the cheese press. The press is first lined with cheese cloth and the curds are spooned in and tapped evenly into place. In this picture a standard weighted cheese press is used, however a plastic tomme style cheese press will work equally well. Simply weight with a heavy book or a brick.

Italy: Mozzarella, The Long and The Short of It

Mozzarella belongs to a class of cheeses called “pasta filata” or stretched curd cheeses. Other cheeses in this category include Provolone and Romano. The acidification of the curds allows the cheeses to melt and stretch. The curds are formed into logs or balls or even braided. Stretching lines up the protein strands form the strings of string cheese.

Offered here are two recipes. The shorter form uses citric acid to get a sure and quick acidification. It is not a perfect recipe, for reasons we’ll talk about below, but it does work and produces a good quality chewy mozzarella that can be eaten by the slice or grated and melted on pizza or in lasagna. It should not be confused with the “30 Minute Mozzarella” popularized by cheesemaking supply houses, which by-passes many steps and produces a cheese that is rubbery and doesn’t store well.

Traditional long form Mozzarella uses thermophilic culture alone to acidify the milk and may take up to four hours to reach the stage where the cheese stretches properly. Added to this is the issue that seasonal milk differences may make it such that the milk will never reach proper acidification without the addition of a small amount of citric acid.

Both forms of Mozzarella will require heat resistant gloves for stretching the mozzarella. I use a double glove system, with thin cotton cloves inside for insulation and rubber gloves outside to keep your hands dry. White cotton gloves for handling artwork are readily available, but any thin cloth gloves will work. Heat resistant silicon gloves are generally too thick for the amount of finger dexterity required and other heat resistant gloves are woven and would not work handling a liquid.

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