homemade cheese
Heat the milk gently until it reaches 32 ° C ( 89 ° F ).
Add the rennet to cooled , boiled water .
Add the rennet . This is best added in about a tablespoon of cool boiled water , and stirred in for about two minutes . Cover the pan and leave for about an hour . Try to keep the cheese around the same temperature during this process .
How do you know the cheese is set ?
Place a clean sterile knife into the cheese and twist it . The curd should break , leaving a gap which quickly fills with whey . If this is undefined or sloppy , leave the milk to set for longer .
Cut the curds
You need to cut the curds into 1 cm ( half inch ) sort of cubes . It ’ s not completely possible because the knife doesn ’ t go in at 90 degrees , but small cube-like funny shapes are fine . I suppose you might call them pyramidal rhomboids .
Cook the curds
Apply very gentle heat , and don ’ t leave the pan , and raise the temperature to 42 ° C ( 106 ° F ). From time to time you will need to stir the curds , VERY gently , you don ’ t want them to fall into a mush . Take about 20 minutes over this , slowly increasing the temperature , and once at that temperature , leave them to stand for another 20 minutes .
As the curds cook , they will lose some of their whey , and this will make the cheese more easy to drain and more stringy too .
Drain the curds
Using a slotted spoon , transfer the spoon into a muslin and allow to drain until no more whey comes out . This might take an hour , and you can hang the muslin from a hook over a bowl .
Load the curds into a draining sack or muslin cloth to drain .
Cooking out the whey and stretching
Sprinkle your salt over the cheese and mix gently with clean fingers .
You will have curds that need to be microwaved for 40 seconds a time - removing the whey each time
You want to get rid of as much when as you can - though you will remember that mozzarella has a lot of whey still in it . What you need to do is transfer the cheese into a large heat proof bowl and then warm in the oven
for ten minutes . Keep the oven at its lowest setting .
You will find more whey has come out . Give the cheese a squeeze , gently , and pour off the whey . Return to the oven and repeat the ten minute cooking - you can leave the oven door open if your oven is too hot . Keep pouring off the whey .
You should find that after about three sessions of this the cheese starts to become stringy when you lift a portion of it . When this happens start to gently , and not too far , stretch the cheese , reforming it into a ball and stretching again , for about 5 minutes .
You will see the surface of the cheese become shiny , and when this happens it is ready .
Alternative route
Salt the cheese as before and then squeeze into one or two balls .
Stretching the cheeses
Plunge them into hot water , about 70C , for 30 seconds , remove and gently squeeze out whey . Reform into a ball and plunge again . After about three or four attempts you will find the cheese starts to become stringy . Finish off as above .
Keep your mozzarella in a covered bowl and use in a week .