Cromaine District Library Shares Thinking Sustainably In The Kitchen: Homemade Dairy Products

Press release from the Cromaine District Library:

April 4, 2021

For me, there’s nothing more satisfying on a Friday evening than stretching my homemade mozzarella cheese to perfection and laying it over a fresh baked pizza. Homemade mozzarella has so much more to offer than cheese from the grocery store, which is chalky and greasy in comparison. It contains only three ingredients, plus any salts or spices you decide to enhance it with, and is creamy, rich, and delightfully stretchy. Making your own cheese and other dairy products is so enjoyable and rewarding, and I am so excited to share a few of my favorite recipes with you this month.

Mozzarella cheese is by far my favorite way to use fresh, whole milk!

Your favorite dairy products don’t have to come from the grocery store! Making your own dairy products, from creamy yogurt to stretchy cheese, is a wonderful skill to have that enables you to live a more self-reliant and sustainable lifestyle. For one thing, store-bought cheese is not always as it seems. Mass-produced dairy products contain extra ingredients that aren’t necessary in your homemade products, such as dyes and stabilizers for aesthetic purposes, as well as preservatives for longer shelf life--which I promise you don’t need in homemade dairy products, because they’re so yummy and will be gone so quickly! When you make your own dairy products, the ingredients can be as simple as milk and some curdling products or cultures--nothing else is necessary for a perfect batch of yogurt or cheese.

If you’re really feeling fancy with your yogurt and cheese making, you can also purchase your milk from a local farm; just like you would purchase produce from a farmers market or gardener. This helps to reduce the need for factory farms, which produce abundant greenhouses gases like carbon dioxide and methane, and also use preventative measures to medicate animals, which result in environmental issues like antibiotic resistance, buildup of growth hormones, and chemicals leaching into nearby ecosystems. Whether your milk is from the grocery store or a local farmer, it is so valuable to understand the process of making your own cheese and yogurt, and I have a few recipes that I return to time and time again. But before we explore some cheese and yogurt recipes, it’s important to first understand the basics of how milk will become these products.

The Basics of Yogurt and Cheese Making

Depending on the style of cheese desired, various methods (and combinations of methods) are necessary to bring out the texture and flavor of cheese. Cheese is made up of curds, which are mostly protein and fat that has been coagulated out of the milk. To make cheese, these solid curds need to be separated from liquid whey by curdling the milk. This can be done by raising the temperature of the milk, adding acidic products or enzymes, or even adding microorganisms. Then, the right amount of liquid needs to be removed to achieve the style of cheese desired by heating, draining, or pressing the cheese. A very high liquid cheese would be cottage cheese or cream cheese, while mozzarella has slightly less liquid; a medium moisture cheese is a swiss or cheddar; and a low moisture cheese is parmesan. After the right amount of liquid is removed from the curds, the curds are sometimes aged, ripened, or fermented to enhance taste.

Yogurt contains a plethora of live cultures, which are microorganisms that not only give yogurt its flavor and texture, but are also wonderful for your digestive system and gut. Yogurt is made by gently scalding milk and denaturing (unfolding) the proteins within it, which changes the texture of the milk. Then the milk is cooled down to a temperature at which live microorganisms can survive, and live starter cultures are added to the milk. Then this temperature, at which the starter culture can replicate, is maintained for 4-12 hours to develop the wonderful taste and texture of yogurt that we know and love.

Something to keep in mind is that working with milk can be finicky. Please don’t stress if your first attempt at cheese or yogurt doesn’t come out quite the way you expected--sometimes it takes practice! Because the chemistry of milk can be complex in cooking, remember not to stray too far from the recipe. Improvising with and adapting the recipe can come later, but until then, be sure to follow the recipe as closely as you can to make sure you’re getting the proportions and temperatures just right for a perfect curdle. There are so many styles of cheese and yogurt that we can explore with fresh, whole milk--here are a few that I am particularly fond of, because they are both simple and delicious recipes.

Ricotta Cheese

To make ricotta cheese, our milk needs to be curdled via heat with the addition of acid. Here is a simple recipe for ricotta cheese (from SheLovesBiscotti; click here to see the full recipe and cheese making tips!), using lemon juice and whole milk.

Ingredients:

• 8 cups whole fat milk, not ultra-pasteurized
• ½ tsp salt
• 3 tablespoons of white vinegar (or you can use freshly squeezed lemon juice**)

Directions:

• Heat milk and salt slowly over medium heat until it reaches 185 degrees F, stirring often.
• Lower the heat to low and add the vinegar, stirring gently for about two minutes to allow the curds to separate from the whey.
• Remove the pot from the heat and allow it to sit undisturbed and covered for 20 minutes.
• Ladle your ricotta into a cheesecloth-lined colander to drain excess whey from the curds- I keep my colander in the sink so the whey can drain freely.
• To make a creamy ricotta, allow the curds to sit for about five minutes; to make a harder ricotta, let it sit about twenty minutes. (When I make ricotta, I only let the curds sit for a few minutes and I end up with a pretty firm cheese!)
• Enjoy!

**A note about using lemon juice for this recipe: When I use lemon juice to make ricotta, the milk doesn't always curdle all the way. This means that you might end up with only a tiny bit of cheese from your 8 cups of milk. I prefer to use vinegar and I recommend it to start if you're a beginner at cheese making, because the curdle will be much quicker and much more distinct. If you do decide to use lemon juice, do not use meyer lemons--they do not have enough acid to properly curdle the milk.

Yogurt / Sour Cream

For a thick, creamy yogurt, I love using a simple yogurt maker. Since the yogurt is unsweetened and unflavored when it comes out of the yogurt maker, you can set some aside to use as sour cream as well.

Ingredients:

• 4 cups whole fat milk, not ultra-pasteurized
• ½ cup greek yogurt, plain
• 2-4 tbsp powdered milk (optional: makes for a thicker yogurt)

Directions:

• Slowly heat milk (and powdered milk, optional) on the stove until it is frothy and steamy, but not boiling, over medium heat. Stir occasionally to prevent milk from scalding or burning on the bottom of the pot.
• Cool the milk in the refrigerator until it reaches 105-110 degrees F; stir occasionally.
• Once the milk is cooled, stir in the yogurt (this is your starter culture) and place mixture in a yogurt maker. Adjust the time on the yogurt maker settings to your preference--I allow mine to sit for 12 hours before moving the mixture to the refrigerator to cool and thicken. Then enjoy!

If you don’t have a yogurt maker and don’t want to purchase one, try making a Slow-Cooker Yogurt recipe.

Thirty Minute Mozzarella

Our mozzarella recipe has a few more steps than the previous recipes, but is so rewarding. It follows some of the basic steps involved in cheese making, such as heating the milk and curdling it by lowering the pH, and using rennet to cut the proteins in the milk. Afterward, the curds are separated from the whey by heating and pressing the curds. No aging is necessary with mozzarella--and better yet, this recipe only takes about thirty minutes! It is adapted from a wonderful book called Home Cheesemaking by Ricki Carroll.

Ingredients:

• 1½ tsp. Citric Acid, dissolved in ½ cup cool water
• 1 gallon whole milk (pasteurized or unpasteurized, but not “ultra-pasteurized”)
• ¼ tsp. Liquid vegetable rennet

Directions:

• In a large pot, slowly heat milk to 55°, stirring occasionally. Add citric acid.
• Continue heating the milk and citric acid to 90°, stirring constantly. I keep my stove around Medium heat for this.
• At 90°, remove the pot from the heat and add vegetable rennet, stirring slowly in an up-and-down motion for thirty seconds.
• Cover the pot and leave undisturbed for 10-15 minutes.
• Check the curd--it should look like a custard, with a clear separation between the curd and the whey. If the curd is too soft or the whey too milky, let sit another few minutes.
• Cut the curd into medium-sized squares with a knife that reaches the bottom of the pot.
• Place the pot back on the stove and heat to 105°, gently moving the curds around with your spoon.
• At 105°, remove from the heat and continue to stir slowly for another 2 minutes.
• Scoop out the curds and put into a microwavable bowl. Press the curds gently with your hands [clean rubber gloves protect your hands through this process and keep the curds clean!], pouring off as much whey as possible.
• Microwave the curds for one minute. Gently fold the cheese over and over, as if kneading bread, draining off all excess whey.
• Microwave two more times for 30 seconds each; seasonings, garlic, and other flavorings can be added as the cheese softens and begins to stretch. When the cheese stretches like taffy, it is done. If the curds break instead of stretch, they are too cool and need to be reheated.
• When the cheese is smooth and shiny, it can be rolled into balls or spread over a plate. They can also be placed in a bowl of ice water for ½ hours to bring the inside temperature down; this will produce a consistent smooth texture throughout the cheese. It is best eaten fresh, but if you must wait, cover and store in the refrigerator.

What is Rennet?

Rennett is an enzyme that cleaves proteins (cuts them in half) and allows them to form into curds, which separate from the liquid whey during cheese making. It can be made using the stomach of an animal, like a goat or cow, and if you are buying your cheese from the grocery store it is likely made this way--if you are vegetarian, be sure to check the labels on the cheese you purchase!

Vegetable rennet is also available, and is made from a species of mold (which is not present in the rennet), or a variety of plants such as thistle or stinging nettle. If you are particularly interested in making your own veggie rennet, here is a really interesting piece on using foraged plants to make rennet.

These recipes are some of my favorite ways to use fresh milk…but the creativity doesn’t end here! There are so many recipes to explore, such as homemade ice cream or gelato, cream cheeses, fancy cheeses like fromage blanc, and more! For more ideas on becoming more sustainable with your dairy products, I recommend checking out Home Cheesemaking by Ricki Carroll. It has so many interesting cheese recipes, including one for mozzarella that doesn’t involve the microwave. The Library even has a revised and updated version of this book, called Home Cheese Making: From Fresh and Soft to Firm, Blue, Goat's Milk, and More: Recipes for 100 Favorite Cheeses. For kids, check out Say Cheese!, also by Ricki Carroll. Homemade Yogurt and Kefir by Gianaclis Caldwell is a great book for pursuing yogurts and dairy beverages, and Homemade Living: Home Dairy With Ashley English also has a huge variety of dairy recipes.

Sometimes with a recipe, having a visual guide along with the recipe is especially helpful, so be sure to join me Saturday, April 24 at 3:00 pm for a cheese making class! I am so excited to share my favorite thirty minute mozzarella recipe with you. Good luck and happy cooking!

This press release was produced by the Cromaine District Library. The views expressed are the author's own.