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French Cooking Class - Cheese

I've made mozzarella at home once. It turned out kinda hard and dense and it was very labor intensive. It gave me a huge appreciation for that ball of fresh mozzarella you buy in the package for $7 or $8 dollars and I'm fairly sure the price is way too low. But anyway, we made a short cut version of mozzarella in class today and it turned out better. Basically the curd was purchased so we didn't have to separate curds from milk and all we did really was warm it up with fairly hot water so that you could form the curd into a ball shape. No kneading, no pulling and no stretching. If you work and pull the cheese curds then the cheese will get tough so we didn't do any of that. We used a good salt and ate the cheese with tomato slices, basil and balsamic and olive oil.

So our first salad of the day was a fresh caprese salad. We also made a queso fresco, which we crumbled on salad greens with a green onion dressing and fresh made croutons.

  

We also made a marscapone cheese which we sweetened with a little sugar and vanilla and served that with a fresh made biscotti. This was only slightly sweet and almost refreshing after eating everything else.

  

We also made labneh, which is a drained yogurt usually with herbs such as mint, oregano, sumac, and chili flakes.



The most labor intensive item for the class was a ricotta gnocchi what everyone helped out with all the cutting and rolling of the little pillows of goodness. And we also made a quick marinara sauce with canned tomatoes, onions, olives and wine. And of course, we made our own naan to go with everything.




This was a very filling class but at least this time the food was on the lighter side with all the fresh cheese.

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