Mozarella Cheese

I love making things homemade. I made farmer's cheese in the past and thought mozzarella sounded hard, but when I looked up how to make it, it was relatively easy. It's not my "personal recipe", but I browsed several books and websites and gleaned different things from different people, and did things how I saw fit. Some of the biggest things though, are to be super clean and use stainless steel pots and utensils. Be careful with the hot water, it is easy to burn your fingers.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 gallon of whole milk (Non-homogenized and not ultra pasteurized if possible. I found mine from Whole Foods, and it is from a local dairy farm)

• 1/8-3/8 of a rennet tablet dissolved in 1/8-1/4 up of water (The recipes I saw called for 1/8th, but I couldn't get a curd to set until I put in 3/8ths of the whole tablet)

• 3/4 teaspoon of citric acid dissolved in 1/8-1/4 cup of water

•  1 pot of hot salt water 170-180 degrees Fahrenheit (1 large pot and enough salt to have a salty taste, about 1/4 of a cup)

• 1 bowl of room temperature water (1 1/2 cups) plus about 1/2 cup of whey and 1/2 cup of the salt water

Directions:

Place the milk and citric acid in a stainless still pot, in a sink filled with hot water.

Wait for the temperature of the milk to reach 90-100 degrees Fahrenheit. Let it sit for a few minutes at this temperature.

Stir in the rennet mixture for about a minute. Let this sit for 10-15 minutes, or until a super firm curd sets up (This is the area where I had trouble, so I added an additional 1/8 of a tablet twice in order for the curd to set). Cut "squares" into the curd using a sharp knife. Let this sit for a couple of minutes while you get a bowl and a strainer/sieve.

Spoon the mixture into the sieve and stir/swirl until almost all of the whey comes out. My ball of curd in the end was relatively small, maybe about a pound or less and very firm.

Break off small one-two inch pieces of the cheese and put in the hot salt water for a couple of minutes (a couple pieces at a time).

Check the elasticity of of the cheese. Once it is stretchy and pliable, try to stretch or fold over as many times as you can. Place the final product in the water/whey mixture for storage (If it lasts that long, we ate this batch right away in caprese salad).