Homemade Herbed Mozzarella | Recipeish | Gustus Vitae
Making your own mozzarella is surprisingly easy to do, and doing so allows you to both flavor exactly to your liking, as well as creating whatever consistency you prefer. We generally make this with Tuscan flavors and use for our pizzas, but the mozzarella is a delicious blank canvas for whatever culinary theme fits with the cheese and charcuterie platter you're making.
- Yield: Around 400 grams/14 oz of cheese + a bunch of whey.
- Time: Around 30 minutes.
- Storage Notes: Will keep, refrigerated and submerged in whey, for 4 days.
- Difficulty: Easy.
Ingredients:
- 1 Gallon whole milk (cannot be ultra-pasteurized)
- 3 Tbs Taste of Tuscany
- 2 Tsp citric acid
- 1/2 Tsp rennet
- 1 Tsp Probiotic Ocean Salt
Directions
- In a large saucepan, bring milk and citric acid up to 90F on medium high heat, stirring as you do to prevent milk from burning on the bottom.
- Crush rennet into a fine powder, and stir in with 1/4 Cup distilled water.
- Remove saucepan from heat, and whisk in rennet water.
- Cover saucepan, and allow to rest off heat for 10 minutes.
- Return to heat, stirring and bringing up to 110F.
- Remove from heat, and using a spider or slotted spoon, ladle out curds into a cheesecloth lined strainer.
- Envelop curds, and squeeze out as much of the whey as you can.
- Return saucepan to heat, bringing whey up to around 180F.
- Return curd ball to whey, cooking for 30 seconds, before removing.
- Stretch cheese as wide as you can, then season with Taste of Tuscany and Probiotic Ocean Salt. Fold cheese over itself a number of times until it becomes firm, then return to hot whey for a further 30 seconds.
- Remove, and stretch and fold again. This is where we stop - if you prefer a very firm mozzarella (say, for grating finely), repeat one more time.
- Allow whey to cool, and pour into a foodsafe container large enough to accomodate cheese. Ensure cheese is fully covered by the whey, cover, and pop in the fridge until needed.
- The remaining whey makes a great protein marinade base/tenderizer for poultry.