Learning to Make Cheese

One of the aspects of being “retired” that I was most excited about was the ability to participate in activities during the day. I have been on the mailing list of a number of venues that offer cooking classes, but I have never attended any. I finally got my chance! A few weeks ago, I received the January program for the Farm Cooking School in Titusville, NJ. Among the interesting offerings was a cheese making class on January 3^rd. The blurb on this class indicated that it is very popular and always sells out. So, I decided to plop my money down. I received a confirmation form on the same day, so I was in.

The Farm Cooking School

The day of the class arrived and I loaded the car and set off. Titusville is near Lambertville, which is a little more than an hour from Morristown. I gave myself an hour and a half because of early morning traffic. Fortunately, weather was not an issue. It was an overcast but dry day. I made good time and there were no issues, but I still arrived at 9:50, just ten minutes before the start. The farm is farther off the main road than I imagined and the local road leading there was posted at 25 mph. At any rate, I arrived, parked the car and went inside.

The instruction space

The space where the instruction takes place is not terribly large and resembles and over-sized country kitchen. The stove is a six-burner. There is a long work counter in front of the stove and that’s where my fellow cheese-makers were standing. I was told to grab an apron, which I did. Then I joined the group. I was the next-to-last to arrive. The chef/instructor, Ian Knauer, did a quick headcount. Just missing one, which brought our number to fifteen. As if on cue, the door opened and are last member arrived. Then the fun began.

Prepping veggies for lunch 

Ian, who previously worked in the test kitchen at Gourmet Magazine, gave us an overview of the class. We would be making four “fresh” cheeses: crème fraiche, ricotta, chevre, and mozzarella. We began with crème fraiche, which was the easiest. It basically just involves adding a starter to cream and letting it sit for forty-eight hours. The interesting thing about this class is that the cheeses we were making were all part of the lunch menu that followed the class. The crème fraiche was going into a dish of lentils and roasted carrots. Our first “hands-on” experience, then, was peeling carrots. Then it was peeling and chopping onions, cleaning mushrooms, and peeling beets and pears. Once the lunch prep was done, we moved on to making ricotta.

Chef Ian ladles the curds

All the cheeses we made involve a few common steps. The most basic step is to heat milk to a desired temperature. This is to eliminate any bacteria and create, as Ian said, “a blank slate”. This cooked milk becomes the building block of the cheese. Then the milk has to be curdled so that you can separate the curds and the whey. As Ian was demonstrating this with the soon-to-be ricotta, he extolled the virtues of whey, which is rich in protein. Since whey is a byproduct of cheese making, he suggested several ways in which we might use it. He also made us all taste it. Not bad. Soon we were ladling molten curds into cheesecloth-lined strainers. One thing became obvious during the class: You need a fair amount of space to make cheese at home.

The most difficult of the cheeses was mozzarella. To make mozzarella, temperature control is more critical than with the other cheeses. It requires an accurate kitchen thermometer, one of which I was lucky enough to receive as a Christmas gift last year. Here the hands-on experience was decisive. Once the curd is ready to be shaped, you have to be able to judge when it is ready to be worked. This involves several immersions in hot water that is ideally around 170º. It is hot, but not unbearably so.  After a few tries, we all got the hang of it. Soon we had a bowl full of mini-mozzarella balls. These were served with some sautéed mushrooms. We had also prepared a beet, kale and chevre salad. 

Some of the dishes

The class was now over. The time just flew by. All the dishes were placed on a buffet table. A quick hand wash and we all took our places at the long communal table. It was all very convivial. A few people had brought wine, which they shared. The food – almost entirely vegetarian- was delicious. Then it was time for dessert – poached pears served with our fresh ricotta. That was a real treat! Absolutely delicious. I will definitely be making ricotta. That was my primary interest in taking this class. This was a morning well-spent.