Has anyone made mozzerella cheese - where did you find the rennet?!
Has anyone made mozzerella cheese - where did you find the rennet?
I'm interested in making my own mozzerella cheese, and I found a recipe online that called for "rennet". I've never noticed this in the grocery store, and I was wondering, what is it, where can I find it, and does anyone have a tried and true recipe for making the mozz?
Answers:
Your supermarket offers rennet.
It's probably in the canning supplies, next to Sure-Gel, FruitFresh, and mason jar lids. The only brand I've ever seen is "Junket".
But if you can't find it, and your store manager seems impossibly dense, and won't help you, you can buy it online. The stuff is dirt cheap; it's the S&H that costs. There are dozens (hundreds?) of places that offer it online, and I don't know whether the link I offer below is a trustworthy company, so please search around if you feel uncomfortable with these folks.
Or if you know an abbatoir, he can help you. They passed a law about 35 years ago that farmers couldn't slaughter their own cattle and offer the meat for sale; they had to use a licensed abbatoir that had a USDA inspector on duty. Before that, Mom would just cut an inch-square piece out of the cow's stomach. That's where rennet comes from, and she *never* failed to get good cheese doing it that way.