Rural Revolution: Thirty-minute mozzarella

I wanted to make some pizza, but we were out of (bulk store-bought) mozzarella cheese. I’d been too busy to make regular mozzarella lately, so I decided to try something that was – supposedly – quick’n’easy: Thirty-minute mozzarella.

Even though this recipe appears in my extremely trusty copy of “Home Cheese Making,” for some reason I was inclined to dismiss it as a gimmick. Cheese in half an hour? C’mon. Certainly I had never tried it before.

However, faced with a shortage of both time and mozzarella, I decided to give it a go.

I started with a gallon of milk over low heat. I always nest two pots, double-boiler style, to make a water jacket. This prevents the milk from scorching.

To the milk, I added a teaspoon and a half of citric acid dissolved in half a cup of cool water.

When the milk hit 90F, I added a quarter-teaspoon of rennet mixed with a quarter-cup of cool water.

When the milk hit about 101F, I turned off the heat and let the rennet do its thing. With this recipe, it only takes about five minutes for the curds and whey to separate.

See? Already it looks mozzarella-ish.

I scooped all the curds into a large bowl, and used the spoon to sorta press out the whey. I poured off the whey, pressed some more, poured off the whey, etc.

Then I put the curds into the microwave for one minute. I donned a latex kitchen glove (which the recipe book recommended) and used one hand to flip the curds around, draining off excess whey. The glove protects my skin from the heat of the mozzarella.

At this point I added a bit of cheese salt and, with my gloved hand, massaged it into the cheese.

I microwaved the cheese for thirty seconds, pressed it using my gloved hand, and drained off the whey. Then I repeated this step.

And you know what? It worked! The result was a nice warm ball of mozzarella cheese.

The last step is to add cold water to the bowl and place ice cubes in it to cool the cheese.

I was astonished how quick and easy this cheese was. Bonus point: It’s great on homemade pizza.

I put the kitchen gloves into their own Ziploc baggie, clearly marked for food use. I know I’ll be using them again.

In fact, I know what I’ll be doing with a lot of my surplus milk from now on…