We had a houseful of guests last week, and for their final evening, I made pizza–two regular vegetarian pies and one vegan pie. Funnily enough, even the non-vegetarians enjoyed the vegan one as much as the regular vegetarian pie!

And…honestly…can you tell which of these two pies is vegan?!! …I didn’t think so!

Now, I’ve been refining my various ingredients throughout the summer, and one thing I’ve been dying to try is making my own meltable mozzarella, rather than using the exorbitantly priced Daiya. My other objection to the Daiya is that it’s highly processed and the stuff I’m trying is not.

So, I did my research first and found that Miyoko Schinner is the big vegan cheese guru, so I ordered two of her books. For good measure, I ordered another book as well–this one by Michael Conroy. After reading about a thousand recipes, I settled on one of Schinner’s:

Next, I, over the course of a couple of weeks, I gathered my ingredients–two of which I had to order from Amazon!!

Vegan Meltable Mozzarella

Here’s a short video of the process:

Ingredients

1 cup soy yogurt

1/2 cup water

1/3 cup canola oil (I used vegetable oil because I had no canola)

2 tsp salt

6 TBS tapioca flour

1 TBS kappa carrageenan powder

1/2 tsp xanthan gum

Directions:

1.  Process the ingredients:

Put the yogurt, water, oil, and 1 teaspoon of the salt in a blender. Process until smooth and creamy, occasionally stopping to scrape down the blender jar and move the mixture toward the blades.

2. Culture the cheese:

Transfer to a clean glass bowl or container, cover, and let rest at room temperature for 8 to 24 hours, until mildly sharp in flavour.

3. Thicken the cheese:

Transfer to a heavy medium saucepan and whisk in the tapioca flour and carrageenan. For a stretchier consistency, whisk in the optional xanthan gum. Cook over medium heat, stirring almost constantly with the whisk, until very smooth, thick, gooey, and glossy, 3 to 5 minutes.

4. Form the cheese:

To make a brine, put the ice water and remaining teaspoon of salt in a large bowl and stir until the salt dissolves. Form the cheese into balls using a small ice-cream scoop, dropping them into the brine as you go. They will harden almost instantly. Cover and refrigerate, keeping the cheese stored in the brine.

Okay…so I’m now I have to wait until tomorrow for step three!

To be continued….