Hint.
The Mexican markets make excellent mozarella and farm cheeses similar to ricotta and sell them cheap cheap cheap.
They also make some nice german style cheeses as a lot of German Mennonites(Mennonita is actually similare to provolone) settled there.
Queso anejo is a decent substitute for Romano at a 1/4 of the price
We started making our own mozarella from this recipe.....it is so great when made fresh....
This recipe is a quick, simple, easy recipe to make a 2-lb block of mozzarella cheese:
Ingredients:
1. 2 gallons of cool milk, either fresh & raw or pasteurized and cooled.
2. Citric acid powder. 2 1/2 very level teaspoons of citric acid powder dissolved in 1/4 cup of cool tap water. Mix into the cool milk for 2 minutes.
3. Heat milk to 88 degrees F. This is not an error. You are not trying to pasteurize the milk. If you get it too hot or too cold, the rennet will not take make curds.
4. Rennet: 1/2 teaspoon liquid rennet (or 1/2 tablet regular rennet OR 2 junket tablets). Dissolve rennet in 1/4 cup cool tap water. Add this into the milk and stir for 14-20 seconds. Cover your pot with a lid and allow milk to remain still for 12-15 minutes while it coagulates.
5. Cut the curd into cubes, around 1/2 inch in size. Let cut curds remain undisturbed for 5 minutes. Apply low heat and stir gently so as to keep curds separated. The curds will shrink as the whey is expelled from them in this step. Slowly heat the curds to 108 degrees over about 10-15 minutes time. Then shut off the heat and continue to stir every few minutes for an additional 20 minutes.
6. Drain curds in a colander for about 15 minutes. You can dip or pour them out of the pan and save the whey to make ricotta if you wish, or save it for the pigs or chickens, or throw it out. After the curds sit for 15 minutes, they will be stuck together in a colander shaped clump. Cut this into strips about 1 inch by 1 inch cross section. Lay the strips in a criss-cross fashion in a large bowl.
7. Mix 1/4 cup salt in 1/2 gallon of water and heat to 170 degrees. I always heat this water up while I am stirring the curds for that 15 minutes in step 5 above. Add the salt water to the bowl with the curds in it, make sure it is enough to cover the curds.
8. Using a wooden spoon or a pair of them, begin to stretch the curds in an upward motion (sort of like stretching taffy only stretch it with the spoons). It will begin to get stringy and will look plastic and shiny. Stretch it for about 10 minutes, then place the whole thing on a board and knead it just like you would bread dough, shaping it into a ball. This takes the excess moisture out of your cheese. Place the cheese in a plastic mold . You can place your plastic mold in a bowl of cold water until it’s firm and cold or just put a lid on it and place it in the refrigerator overnight. It’s now ready to eat. You can eat it in chunks or slices or grate it and cook with it.
To store, place in zip-lock bag or plastic wrap and refrigerate.
NOTE: If you want salt-free cheese, you can stretch it in the hot water without the salt, but the flavor is better with the salt.
Any suggestions for a half container of ricotta? I’ve read to add cocoa powder and eat it like that. ??
Not the Mexican markets around here, and there are plenty of them. They are heavy on packaged goods, phone cards, money wiring and who knows what else because they ALWAYS make the gringos uncomfortable when they enter.