The package from the New England Cheesemaking Supply arrived in what seemed like moments after I placed the order on their website. Turns out it’s located only a few miles away from us, over in the Pioneer Valley. I wish they were closer, though, because I need their cheesemaking expertise.
I am beginning to think that cheesemaking should be filed along with baking in the kitchen arts categories — it’s one of those tasks that require, you know, accurate measurement.
Accurate measurement may not have been the problem, though. I’m not sure what the problem was. All I know is that I’ve tried twice now to make mozzarella, as it is so gloriously heralded here, and what I made instead was a warm pot of milk with citric acid and rennet.
Dan thinks it’s the citric acid; I think it’s the milk. (Though I tried two varieties, neither of which claimed to be ultra-pasteurized, a germ-destroying heat process that apparently makes milk unsuitable for cheesemaking.)
All this is what led me to quiz the fashionable teenaged girl manning the booth for a local cheese producer at the farmers’ market a couple of weeks ago. The poor girl didn’t know much about making cheese — she was just selling it — but she quite happily doled out a phone number. “Ask my mom,” she said, about obtaining unpasteurized milk.
So, anybody want to go in on a nine-gallon share?
One Comment
Here in Ontario it is illegal to buy unpasturized milk. Which pretty much entirely sucks. I can buy cigarettes, and even small quantities of pot legally, but not milk with germs in it. How does that make any sense?
So it may be the same in your locality.
There used to be a loophole wherein you could buy a share of the cow, and then therefore you owned the cow, and could as such, get the milk for free. I think they cracked down on that too though.
I have though made (sorta kinda) cheese via Jamie Olivers recipe for chicken poached with lemon and milk. I wouldn’t call it mozzarella, more like just curdled goo, but it was kinda neat.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_19558,00.html
Actually, that makes me a bit sad, as it was a dish we made when we first got Kaylee, because she was so spooked from the shelter (where she got spayed AND picked up worms and fleas) she didn’t eat for a week. Garlic and poultry and dairy (we learned – we were new to cats at the time) were supposed to be most cats absolute favourites.
It is a very warm and cosy dish. I think I should make it again tonight.