Cabécou and Mozzarella. Saturday August 8th 2015

For months I had passed a new little shop in Wynyard called Providore but the other day when they had a sign out advertising cheese making supplies I thought it was time to make a visit. I struck up a conversation with the owner, a cheesemaker himself who had done a course with a man in Brisbane from whom I buy my cheesemaking cultures. The Providore shop is now going to his stock cultures...that will be very handy as I won't have to build up a list of things I need before placing an order and also won't run the risk of the cultures being left in the mailbox in the sun.

One of this man's favourite cheeses is Cabecou a fresh French cheese mostly made with goat's milk but which can be made from cow's. It is easy and doesn't involve lots of stirring and heating. So this morning when the day was looking a bit cloudy and not so nice for being outside, I thought I'd give it a go. Found a recipe in Artisan Cheese Making at Home and off I went. 

The milk has been warmed to 75 degrees F, some Flora Danica culture added, then a dash of rennet.

 It now sits for 18 hours to mature. 

It will end up in a jar of oil in a few days with some herbs but perhaps I will write about that next time.

I thought I would make a 30 minute Mozzarella whilst I was about it. Tis one is pretty simple. It probably isn't as great as a hand crafted proper recipe Mozzarella but it is fine grated onto a pizza so good enough for my purposes! This recipe just calls for the milk to be warmed, citric acid added, then rennet.

After the curd is cut you heat it in the microwave to get it hot enough to be stretchy .

Then it is broken off into little balls and out straight into an ice bath to cool quickly.