Say CHEESE! 🧀🧀🧀

Mozzarella, Ricotta, and Paneer

I recently spent a Saturday afternoon learning how to make three types of cheese (actually, four, but since the fourth was made from cashews, I’m not counting it:)

I have made cheese before, but it was gouda, so I am still counting this as a new activity. I made the gouda at a dairy farm while I was living in Amsterdam, and it was a much bigger process. I had to return to the farm weeks later to pick up my final product. The mozzarella, ricotta, and paneer were all made and ready to eat during the class, which only lasted three hours.

We started with ricotta made with just milk, buttermilk, heavy cream, salt, lemon juice, and apple cider vinegar. This was so much easier than I expected. In fact, I made it at home again the next day.

Skimming the curds and our ricotta after pressing out the liquid

We then moved on to mozzarella. This cooking class location was right next to Little Italy in NYC, so our instructor was supplying us with about 10 pounds of curd she picked up at a famous Italian grocery store a block away. We covered the curds in very hot salty water, stretched and rolled it, and finally wrapped it up.

Curd soaking, then being pulled, and formed into a ball before finally being wrapped

We finished by making paneer which was very similar to ricotta but included the extra step of pressing it to remove the extra moisture. Because it wasn’t pressed very long, it was creamy and not in a block like paneer you can purchase. We made a biryani with our paneer but unfortunately, I didn’t remember to take photos of it.

I did take photos of our other final creations, as you can see below (including the cashew nut “cheese” which was more like hummus).

Our freshly made ricotta on toast with honey and pepper, our freshly made mozzarella used in a Caprese salad, and the cashew nut “cheese”

I love just about all types of cheese, so I am really glad I took this class. I could easily make all of these cheeses again on my own and will definitely plan to do so.

Have you made cheese? If so, what should be the next cheese I try?

In YouTube, search “Make Ricotta” and you will get a lot of options. I am not attaching a specific link because it would appear as an attachment to this email and it may affect the ability of the newsletter to make it into your inbox.

How to Make Cheese on Wikihow

The New England Cheesemaking Supply Company for recipes, supplies, and workshops

Since I have not posted about cheese or any other cooking class in the past, I’m including a few posts related to food and food prep.

Tea Eggs

Korean Food

Knife Skills

Make Ricotta! This was by far the easiest of the cheeses I tried to make. You can find information in the Links section.