I've been making my own yogurt for a while now. I follow this recipe and use Stonyfield Farm's yogurt for starter (it makes for a slightly sweet and very creamy yogurt). I then mix in whatever berries are in season along with a bit of the jam my wife makes. That and an egg makes for a very nice breakfast.
I've also made this Vietnamese yogurt following the method outlined in the link above and again with Stonyfield Farm's yogurt for starter.Very nice but too many calories for someone on a diet.
I tried my hand at making mozzarella using this recipe. It ended up effectively being ricotta. I had thought that the failure came from the recipe. In that the prof is big into self sufficiency and has his own dairy animals and has learned exactly how acidic his buttermilk will make his curds. I then found this which more importantly brought me to this. What she is describing is what happened to me. So I took her advice and reconstituted a gallon of non-fat dried milk and replaced a pint of it with light cream. I then followed her mozzarella recipe this evening with the addition of the prof's brine bath. It behaved as described and it smelled like cheese when it was warm. I'll be trying some tomorrow afternoon.
----
I've tried the cheese and I'm pleased. It tastes like string cheese but not as dry and rubbery. The outside is very salty from the brine. I expect that to be absorbed into the cheese in the next couple days. I'm a little worried it will be a bit too salty but it's too early to tell. I soaked it about 18 hours so I'll soak it less if it is too salty.
After I made it I learned about lipase and how it will make it taste more like Italian cheese. Might play with that next.
Update: A few days later and the salt had absorbed into the cheese. Not at all salty. It does melt when used in cooking but not completely when added at the end. I think this was due to me not working the cheese until all the whey was out of it. I was concerned that it would become too rubbery (too much like string cheese) if worked too much. I suspect it would've melt if added to the dish earlier.
End result: More flavorful than string cheese but it didn't melt as easily. I'm not sure if working it more would kill the flavor.
Custom Search
