Adventures in Making Mozzarella

"There are two food groups in the world: The one you put cheese on and the one you put chocolate on." ~ Anonymous

A Love of Cheese
I love cheese. Anyone who knows me at all knows this. At one point this last semester a glance into my fridge revealed Cheddar, Babybel (which is Edam cheese), Feta, Swiss, Provolone, Brie, Mozzarella, Colby Jack, shredded Parmesan, grated Parmesan and a hunk of fresh Parmesan. I believe this adequately illustrates my obsession with cheese.

I think we'll all be happier if we just pretend that cheese is a non-fattening food that counts as one of our daily vegetable servings.

It should come as no surprise that the concept of making cheese at home sounds fantastic to me! One of my Christmas gifts this year was a mozzarella and ricotta cheesemaking kit. My parents know me so well.

Selecting Milk
As I began to prepare for my cheesemaking adventure I discovered first and foremost that not all milks are created equal. Well, I suppose they're all created equal, but wide discrepancies in pasteurizing temperatures mean that by the time the milk hits the shelf they are no longer equal.

Ultra-pasteurized milk does not produce cheese. The good news is, most milk is not UP and this must be clearly marked on the label. The bad news?

Many milks are pasteurized at temps just shy of ultra-paseteurization, and this information is not included on the label. Most cheese-makers recommend using raw milk, or pasteurizing raw milk at home.

I know that there are a lot of arguments for the benefits and safety of raw milk, but it makes me nervous. Frankly, I think if you aren't 100% confident as to the cleanliness of the milk, raw milk is too big of a risk. Therefore, I chose to experiment with pasteurized milk from the grocery store. Gandy's dairy is located in Lubbock, so the milk is relatively local. I hoped this might mean a lower pasteurization temperature, as one of the reasons for UP is to help milk keep longer as it is transported long distances.

Making my Curds and Whey
Cheesemaking is not particularly difficult. The only ingredients are milk, water, citric acid, rennet and salt. These are combined and the mixture is heated to various temperatures as ingredients are added. The goal is to end up with silky, custard-like curds.

These are not those. These are ricotta-like curds and they signal that my milk was pasteurized at a high temperature.

Rats.

At this point, I suspected failure. My curds were all wrong and did not promise to yield a beautiful ball of mozzarella. I also began to suspect that my food photography needs work, as that is one ugly photo of curds and whey. But to my knowledge, that doesn't affect the cheesemaking process.


I Made Cheese!
With nothing else to do, I decided to continue following the instructions through to the end.

After the curds are removed from the whey, they are heated and stretched, until the curds meld together.

Surprisingly, as I stretched, I got the texture that I had been looking for. I've got cheese! I formed a ball, a log and couple of cheese sticks and threw them into cold water.

A taste test revealed a product that tastes like mozzarella. Fresh, delicious, homemade mozzarella. Perhaps you can tell, I'm fairly proud of this accomplishment.

Making my own cheese makes me so happy that I've already made a second batch. This time I did even more research on milks and discovered that several people have had success with Borden milk, so I used this. Here are my curds at the exact same point in the process as the above curd photo. The curds are solid and custardy. Looks like Borden milk is pasteurized at a lower temperature than Gandy's. I've found a winner! And I'm enjoying fresh mozzarella with freshly baked bread made using the whey from making cheese.

Now, if only I could stay home tomorrow and make cheese and bake bread. I suppose I'll go to work and class instead.

I Would do Anything for Love

Everything is Better with Bacon 
I made meatloaf on Monday. Pioneer Woman's meatloaf to be precise. Yumm. I'm a fan of meatloaf, and this had bacon wrapped around the beef. Bacon totally makes a dish more healthy. I think I heard that somewhere. Or maybe not, but bacon most definitely makes everything more delicious and this was tasty meatloaf.

I read that the recipe serves eight and I thought about halving it. I wanted to make sure I had leftovers for the week and thought I'd better make the whole recipe, just in case. 10 slices of leftover meatloaf later I realized that I should have just halved the recipe. Looks like I've got dinner for two weeks. And thank goodness for freezers.

In her recipe introduction, Pioneer Woman wonders why meatloaf gets such a bad rap. It's ground beef mixed with seasoning, eggs, milk, bread and cheese. And in this case wrapped in bacon. Seriously, what's bad about that?

PW thinks it might be the word loaf. Or the words meat and loaf together. Or perhaps memories of disheveled seventies rock singers. I think it has something to do with school cafeterias. Bland and made of who-knows-what, cafeteria meatloaf is not the same and is not nearly as delicious. It's an unappetizing grey colour and I'll admit, the greasy cheese pizza always looked much better. If this is your view of meatloaf, you should make meatloaf with good beef and bacon. I can almost guarantee that you'll be a meatloaf-lover convert.

Warwick Castle
Speaking of meatloaf, I have a lot of fond memories from Warwick Castle in England. This English castle was originally built by William the Conqueror in the 11th century. Portions of the current stone structure date back to the 13th century.

What does a 13th century castle have to do with meatloaf, you ask? Well, not much I suppose. But I'm talking about Meatloaf the disheveled seventies rock singer, not meatloaf the meat that is made infinitely better by bacon. I hope that clears things up.

I once had a serious asthma attack at Warwick. Change in my environment often triggers my asthma, and trips to England tend to include some difficulty breathing. As it turns out, visits to historic sites are considerably less enjoyable when you spend the day collapsed on bench and wheezing. You should just take my word for it.

Other visits to the castle have been much more pleasant. Warwick is owned by the Tussauds Group and is now under the Merlin Entertainments (according to trusty Wikipedia, this is the second largest leisure group behind Disney). In other words, the castle is home to flashy entertainers, the world's largest working siege machine (a massive trebuchet), and elaborate wax figures preparing for a royal weekend party. When I was young, I did not understand that the wax figures inside the castle were not real. I desperately wanted to stay and watch a wax woman fill up wax basin with wax water.

Medieval Torture 
In 2006 my family visited Warwick yet again. The wax figures hadn't made much progress and that wax basin was still unfilled. We enjoyed a full day of touring the castle and the beautiful grounds. We cheered for jousting knights and saw plenty of trebuchet action. I also sat in the stocks and practiced my medieval torture skills on my best friend who suffered on the rack. Oh how I love good, wholesome fun.

The Warwick experience is a bit flashy and focuses heavily on entertainment and money. However, I think it is a lovely place that successfully interprets the castle's history. Because it is incredibly theatrical, it makes for a grand time. [Insert here a lengthy and heated discussion about the monetizing of historical sites and the principles of historical site interpretation]

An Unexpected Performance 
Our historical journey through the castle ended on an interesting note. As we were leaving we heard musical chords coming from beyond the castle walls.

I would do anything for love...
I would do anything for love...
But I won't do that

Yep, Meatloaf was rehearsing for his evening performance at Warwick Castle. Meatloaf's riffs blaring across loudspeakers isn't exactly what you expect to hear from the stones of a medieval castle. Nevertheless, on that day a disheveled seventies singer provided the soundtrack for our medieval experience.

And that is why meatloaf always makes me think of Warwick Castle.