These Two Hands

I have got to tell you about this little discovery I made yesterday: honeyed mozzarella.

I was making regular mozzarella for the grilled pizza we were going to have later in the week, and on impulse I separated a trial bit and kneaded honey into it. And oh. my. god. was it ever good. Deliriously good. Like, biting into a melting cheese danish good – and even without all the extra calories. (But man, come to think of it I sure could see this wrapped in pastry. And maybe deep-fried, to boot. Extra calories, here we come again.)

You all know what a firm believer I am in the necessity of mixing different tastes together to bring out the best in any given food, right? Like how adding brown sugar to tomato sauce, a little flaked salt to a chocolate chip cookie, or a little acid to barbecue sauce suddenly makes those basic foods so much better, even if you can’t actually taste the addition itself? Well this cheese started out as a thought experiment like that – what would happen if I put sweet honey into a salty cheese? – and ended up cementing my belief forever.

Someone has to have done this before, right? I cannot possibly have been the first person ever in the history of cheesemaking to mix honey into my curds. I probably just haven’t seen it before because I’m such a cheapskate that I stay very far away from the expensive-cheese-counter (while eyeing it wistfully from over in the dried beans aisle). But if not… then why isn’t this more popular? Because I have to say, honeyed cheese is probably going to become something of a staple at my house from now on. I can’t wait to try doing this with something even more pungent, like a sharp cheddar – and next year, with raw honey of my very own.

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 31st, 2010 at 11:02 pm and is filed under Crafts, food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.