Monday, April 26, 2010

I Made Cheese!

Boiling water aside, it's quite simply the simplest thing I've ever made. Soft, creamy, and wonderful, all it took was two cups of milk, two tablespoons of distilled vinegar, a little salt, and four(ish) minutes in the microwave.


What? You've never had microwave-fresh cheese? Frickin' weird as it might sound, I promise it's good. In fact, using this idiot-proof method from Serious Eats, I can't recall making anything as satisfying with as little effort as this took. I rolled mine with fresh parsley then garnished with a little olive oil and sea salt, but I would imagine the flavor options are just about endless.

I shared my first batch with some friends this past Friday (to rave reviews, I'm proud to say), but I'm saving my second and third batches for a white pizza I'm making later this week. My hope is that it will get nice and gooey/soft in the oven, but I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

I'm not sure if I'll tackle more complicated cheeses like mozzarella or cheddar (they take considerably more effort), but I'm pretty proud that I now make cheese from scratch. And the fact that its flavor is miles beyond store-bought is icing on the (cheese)cake.

ps- Holy crap! I totally meant that as a cheesy pun (haha, I did it again), but I bet I could make cheesecake with this stuff. Now I just need a graham cracker recipe.

pps- nice!

4 comments:

  1. have you tried making your own yogurt? alton brown claims it can be done with a heating pad.

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  2. I haven't tried that yet, but it's certainly something to put on my to-do list.

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  3. as i recall, it was quite good. in fact, i'm thinking of recreating (and/or improving upon) it in a couple of weeks when i get to the beach.

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