Mozzarella Fresca!!!

So here it is, the object of my desire, the subject of my dreams and the deliciousness that fills my stomach, Fresh, Home-made, Mozzarella.  Now, for this there is no substitute, and these past couple days I have even been impressing myself with what I can accomplish.  Come tomorrow I will be cooking for quite a large number of guests in my house and the worst thing an Italian host can do is not make enough food.  

On the menu is Pizza, Lasagna and Tricolore pasta salad alla Salvatore...and you cant have Sal's pizza without fresh mozzarella.  The only thing is the shipment that should have came today was delayed and wont come until Sunday (TIG:This is Grenada) so I adapt.  I had the curds in my freezer and said, lets give this a shot...

I took this block of 10 pounds of curds and got almost halfway through it...so think about 4 pounds of curds, and I let it come to room temperature and diced them up.

I made them into french fry style shreds and then gave them a good rinsing twice.

After I rinsed them I drained it out and had on the stove about 4-5 quarts of salted water (about 3-6 oz of sea salt) and brought it up to just before a boil.  To do this you either need a thermometer or a good sense of temperature.  You also want to set up a bowl with ice water.  So once that is set, you take the sliced curds and start putting the hot water on.  

You want the hot, salted water to be around 180 F and it will cool down to about 140 when you put it in the bowl.  This is prime stretching time.  Now this technique is a little hard to explain so unless someone wants to be my videographer I will try to explain.  You want to let it come and fold together like a log.  Once it is formed you want to stretch it out, letting the weight of the cheese stretch itself out.  You also want to fold it about 3-4 times lengthwise allowing it to be maintained in the water after each fold.  I know sounds hard, but it isn't really once you get the hang of it. Just come over and I'll show you!

Next you are going to want to take the cheese and fold it like a croissant out of the hot water and form a ball.  When it is cooled a little from forming in your hands you want to put it in that salted ice water bath.  

Just pinch it off properly and have fun with it...it's Mozzarella!

Here you see the little family of eight complete with the baby at the far left.  We are in for a treat tomorrow!

And there you have it, fresh Mozz' whenever you want it!  Enjoy, I know I will!