mozzarella tast test

[julesjones]

Kalypso_v came round for dinner and Doctor Who last night. Dinner this week was home-made pizza, and since our local cheese shop had both water buffalo mozzarella and cow's milk mozzarella (both vacuum-packed in brine), I decided it was time for a comparison. Not a lot of difference in appearance or texture out of the packet, other than the obvious one of the buffalo variety being sold in a larger ball. Tasting them raw, Kalypso_v, Other Half and I all agreed that the buffalo was a little saltier and had a little more flavour, but that there wasn't a huge amount of difference. No obvious difference on the cooked pizza.

So was it worth paying the higher price for the water buffalo version? Not really, if it's a choice between mozzarellas to put on a pizza. But if it's a choice between a good mozzarella and some other cheese, then yes, it makes a very good pizza and I'd rather buy the water buffalo variety if that's what's in stock than a less suitable variety of cheese.

We do not intend to to taste test the pre-sliced low moisture mozzarella that was the only version available in the local Co-op yesterday. They had been stocking the fresh-in-brine cow's milk balls, but have obviously decided to go for the long shelf-life stuff instead. :-(

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It's worth also testing a few buffalo mozzarellas (mozzarelli? mozzarelle?) (the plural of novella is novelle: I scored with that in last night's Scrabble) against each other. I have had fabulously good ones - far too good for pizza - as well as those practically indistinguishable from cow's milk.

[julesjones]

That's worth knowing, thanks. These were just the bog standard ones stocked by the local cheese shop, which means that they will be good cheeses, but not necessarily anything special. I'll have to keep an eye out for them doing other brands, but it's a physically tiny shop so the range stocked of any one type of cheese can be limited for purely practical reasons.

(You will have to come and visit the next time you are in Manchester -- my local high street has a Real Cheesemonger and a Real Fishmonger & Poulterer and a Real Butcher and a couple of greengrocers, plus not one but two branches of L-Space and an Oxfam speciality bookshop.)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Heh. *wants a neighbourhood* In Newcastle I have half a dozen Asian foodstores in five minutes' walking distance, which is fabulous - but really nowhere else I'd choose to shop. And California of course is California. Downtown Sunnyvale is a stroll away, and the restaurants are good, but the shopping is all supermarkets.

[julesjones]

Did you never get to Mountain View on previous trips? The high street's attractions include a Chinese supermarket with a good butcher's counter and a fabulous (though not for the squeamish)[*] fish counter, and Bookbuyers, and further up El Camino Real the utterly fabulous Milk Pail, purveyor of fine cheeses, deli products and fresh, fresh greengroceries.

[*live fish and shellfish in squalid overcrowded tanks. Once a crate of live and obviously distressed frogs...]