Yesterday, I learnt that making cheese can be incredibly easy (if you want to make fresh mozzarella) and rather complex and time-consuming (if you want to make a hard, aged cheese).

Mum, Lil’Sis and I (and approximately twenty other eager cheeselovers) spent the day in a beautiful home with a gorgeous garden and a stunning view, watching a work colleague of Mum’s demonstrate the fine art of creating cheese.

Sheryl makes cheese as a hobby, and over a period of three hours conjured up a fresh mozzarella, a soft cheese called “columnier” and a hard cheese with cumin. All involved a lot of fresh, unpastuerised milk (from the dairy farm down the road), a dash of rennet and, in the case of the columnier and the hard cheese the magic ingredient: culture.

After the cheeses were almost all done (the hard cheese had to sit for an hour before going under Sheryl’s homemade press, then it would be aged for at least three months) we were treated to a delicious lunch with the fresh mozzarella she’d made earlier scattered in a tomato salad with quails’ eggs, feta (again, homemade), pinenut and mushroom quiche and a technicoloured nasturtium salad, accompanied with wine and fresh orange juice. This was followed by a cinnamon ricotta cheesecake, syllabub and a sample of some hard cheese made in April and a soft cheese made in September. Lovely!

By this point we could hardly move as we sat on the verandah, gazing at the spectacular view over Whangarei Harbour, and we all decided that it would be better if we just sat there for the rest of the day, as nobody would really miss us.

But, there was more! So regretably (and very slowly) we had to get out of our chairs to let Sheryl show us her cheese safe under the house (where the hard cheeses age) and then it was back upstairs to the kitchen where she demonstrated how she scrubbed and brined the outside of the cheese to create a rind.

Inspired, Lil’Sis and I decided on the drive home that we might have a crack at making mozzarella for Christmas Day – here’s the recipe (rennet is readily available on line, or you can use junket, which you can get from the supermarket, and you can use full cream milk from the supermarket if you can’t get hold of the real deal).

You’ll also need a big pot, a large knife, a slotted spoon and a thermometer, all pre-sterilised (Sheryl used Milton Sterilising Tablets, normally used for sterilising baby’s bottles).

Easy peasy mozzarella recipe

Ingredients: Two litres of fresh milk, rennet, salt, citric acid.

1) Add 1/2 a teaspoon of salt and 1/2 a teaspoon of citric acid to two litres of milk.

2) Heat to 32C then add 1/2 teaspoon of rennet, stir into the milk using the slotted spoon.

Leave to set for ten minutes.

3) Once the curd has set cut into even pieces with a knife, then heat to 41C. Leave to stand for five minutes.

4) Drain off some of the whey and place the curd in a microwave safe bowl, then cook on HIGH for one minute.

5) With the slotted spoon, form the curds into egg-shaped balls in the bowl, then cook on HIGH for 1/2 a minute.

6) Form the balls into firmer balls once again, then cook once more on HIGH for 1/2 a minute.

5) Shape with care (you can use sterilised rubber gloves to squeeze out the additional whey) then place into a bowl of cold water to cool and set.

If you don’t have a microwave, heat the curds up to 45C in the pot and form the balls as it heats.

Hey presto, mozzarella ready to eat pronto!  If you want to know how to make the soft and hard cheeses, let me know.

Happy Fromaging!