Even the cheap kind sounds great, considering now expensive cheese is in my country. You got a recipe?
Kinda sorta. I've read a lot of approaches and they tend to vary, probably due to the kind of milk you can get locally and technique and such, but this is what I typically do:
Ingredients:
Milk - This should be pasteurized (unless you're comfortable scalding unpasteurized milk yourself), but it shouldn't be ultra-pasteurized and if you can get non-homogonized milk it will help. I usually used homogonized pasteurized milk and it works ok. Use the highest percent milk-fat you can get (skim can still be made into cheese but you get less volume and it won't taste very rich). Species actually doesn't matter, so long as its animal milk. I've done cow, lamb, and goat and they all turned out fine with slightly different flavours.
Citric Acid/Lemon Juice. - One or the other. You need way more lemon juice than citric acid if you go that route. Depending on your milk you may need a fair amount of acid to get it to curdle, but the name of the game is just having enough to get the curds. I use lemon juice because its cheaper.
Rennet - This is the one specialized thing in the recipe. It might be a little tough to find, but I've seen it in a number of grocery stores and online where I live so hopefully you can get it. It comes in either tablet form or liquid form, but it doesn't really matter which one you get.
Salt - You could get cheesemakers salt, but frankly its just the kind of salt they put on large soft pretzels or some pastries and its marked way up. Its that sort of cloudy-white salt crystal that breaks up really easy, and doesn't have iodine.
Equipment:
A big pot
A mixing spoon
Something you can cut very soft material with (silicone spatula, butter knife, whatevs)
Something to seive out the curds from the whey. Strainer, cheesecloth, cullender.
A thermometer
A few bowls probably
Steps:
1. Dump your milk into a big pot. I usually do a 4-Litre jug when I make cheese because the effort to quantity ratio is favourable around there. Too little and its tough to have enough to stretch and work, too much and you have to break it up into batches.
2. Add your acid, at a rate of about 15ml lemon per 250 ml milk. If you use citric acid, keep in mind it is way way stronger, so you'll have to confirm how much to use, but I think its like 2.5ml citric acid per 250ml milk.
3. Heat the mixture to 32 C, gently stirring and add your Rennet. I use two tablets per 4L milk, but the packaging should have directions on how much to go with. The more rennet the more stiff the cheese is. If you add too much rennet you get something more like halloumi than mozzarella (personal experience).
4. Rest the mixture for 5 minutes. It should have coagulated into this mass of curd that is floating in whey. If it didn't curdle there are two routes - you can either add more acid or add some heat to stimulate the reaction. If you don't plan to use the whey then it doesn't really matter if you go a little overboard on acid, but personally I go to a maximum of 25% more acid before chucking it on the heat again. Try not to let the heat get much higher than like 35 C, but generally speaking I find that if I get to the point of needing heat, usually just touching it to the burner sets off the reaction.
- I think this is a milk specific issue. Some brands of cows milk in Canada seem to take way more acid to curdle. I dunno if that's because of homogenization/pasteurization or if some cows are just basic AF.
5. Assuming you got curds, you're now gonna run a knife through the curds to kind of cube them in the pot still floating in the whey. Then, back on the heat, you're gonna raise the temp to about 42 C and just stir for a little while. This tempers the cheese and effects your texture at the end. I think this is where my technique breaks down because I don't get the soft cloudy texture I want, so follow your heart on how much to temper it. Some recipes say to mix it a while, others tell you to take it off the second it hits 42C.
6. Remove the curds from the whey, or visa versa. Traditionally you would use cheesecloth here, but I just use a stainless steel mesh sieve. The amount you get out will effect the qualities of the cheese at the end, but its kind of a finicky thing because you need to get the vast majority of whey out of the system before the cheese will even be willing to form into a ball for you. If you want melty mozzarella then you would try to leave in more liquid, hard mozzarella you leave less.
- There is way more whey in the curds than you may expect. Usually I press the curds for a while, and then dump them in a bowl and just let the whey leak out for a bit.
7. You've got curds that you think are whey free. Awesome, time to test that theory. Pick up the curds and try to form them into a ball. Assuming you can do that without a pile of whey squirting out, you then want to do a stretching kneading motion. I'm sure there's a proper name for this but I really don't know it. Basically its similar to the bread kneading motion where you take the mass in two hands before you, then press up into the middle of the ball with your fingers and pull down on the sides with the heels of your hands, so it looks like a mushroom cap.
8. While kneading you can add your salt. There are two ways to add salt. The first is to sprinkle it onto the cheese as you knead it, and the other is to make a saltwater bath and immerse the cheese in that water while you knead. It might sound like an advanced move to go with the bath but I find it kind of helps, because you heat the bath to about 50C and that keeps the cheese soft and workable while you do your thing. That said, you really need the cheese to be definitely in one solid piece before you put it in the bath or you'll be re-straining it. Salt is always just to taste, so its your call how far to go.
9. And you just keep doing the kneading motion until you have the texture you want. If you don't have the right texture but the cheese won't move, you just heat up the cheese. Either in a saltwater bath or the microwave, or the whey. The more you stretch and knead, the tougher the final cheese will be, so in my case I try to barely touch it, but if you wanted like a stretchy pizza mozzarella you would go for longer and if you decided to make something like halloumi then you would be kneading until it gets really hard.
And there you go. That's everything I do, and I always get at least passable cheese at the end. Refinement of technique will hopefully improve what I get, but I can say at least that if you do the above you'll get something edible. Also you can use the whey as a hydrating drink or cook it into recipes as a replacement for water. It adds protien and has a very mild flavour. The cheese will keep for a few days to a week in the fridge, although the flavour does not improve with age.
with tempura sushi.
