Has anyone made mozzarella cheese?

At our age and after 22 years of marriage, we have settled on a form of gift giving that basically involves ordering weird things on extreme sale online for any completely bizarre project or interest we can think of. That way we don't have to worry about figuring out what the other wants.

My husband had a package delivered from overseas. It was labeled with the actual contents and placed outside of our mailbox. I picked it up and remarked to him that it didn't matter that the contents were specified on the outside because no one, and I mean no one, walking down our street was going to steal anything called Nonlinear Dynamics.

Meanwhile, I picked up vegetable rennet, cheese salt and citric acid. (And mealworms but we've covered that :) )

I want to make mozzarella cheese. I've made fresh cheese (paneer) in the past but this looks more complicated and frankly the woman online scares me. I'm confused about the pulling aspect of this process. Any thoughts about technique or concerns I should have or just barrel in and don't worry about it. Burrata is next. I really like burrata. That actually looks more like a sure thing but slightly more complicated.

I have never made it myself but I have watched it be made several times. My dad actually used to make it. Unfortunately he is long gone, so I can not ask. However, the stretching part where you stretch and fold, to me has always been equal to making bread dough. Really all your doing is mixing it it up folding it over on itself, mixing in the salt and so on. The hot water is there to put it back in to make it flexible again. Where bread dough you can just keep on kneading, the cheese you have to warm up or the fibers and stuff tear. Wish I could be more help but that's as far as it goes on my knowledge.

You making it from cow milk or goat milk? It is quite tasty from goats. Just more curious I know you have goats.

We've made it at the restaurant where I work, and Jeff pretty much nailed the process.

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Originally Posted by Jeff

You making it from cow milk or goat milk? It is quite tasty from goats. Just more curious I know you have goats.

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Cow's milk. We don't breed our goats. We just use them as fertilizer factories. I'm betting I can get fresh goat milk from someone local though.

Be sure to let us know how it turns out.

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Originally Posted by POPTOP

Be sure to let us know how it turns out.

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Definitely. I'm not a bread person so I'm not completely confident but the ingredients are cheap enough so not a bad experiment.

Gosh, the Serious Eats website must be watching! This was on my FB feed just today. It talks about what kind of milk to use and various alternative techniques in the process. Interesting, but not enough to make me go search out the right type of milk at this point.

How to Make Fresh Mozzarella From Scratch | Serious Eats

This has got to be cabin fever.

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Originally Posted by jertom

This has got to be cabin fever.

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Pretty much! This is one of three setups I have in my living room right now after I ate on them today. I WILL have my micro greens no matter what time of year it is. :D It's also the time of year I learn how to cook things though.