How To Make A Vegan Buffalo Mozzarella That's Just As Creamy
Buffalo mozzarella, or fior di latte mozzarella, is the gold standard in Italian cheese. This ingenious recipe will have you crafting beautiful rounded balls of buffalo mozzarella, leaving the buffalo well alone.
This one is a really fun recipe to make. Using thermal shock, you'll craft a mixture and set it suddenly in ice-cold water. A few minutes of chilling the ingredients, and you'll have a ball of mozzarella that can be used just like traditional buffalo mozzarella. Try it in a traditional Italian salad before moving on to the main event, where you can enjoy it sliced over a pizza.
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Cashew Buffalo Mozzarella
Makes enough for 4 pizzas
Ingredients:
- Ice cubes (for chilling the water)
- 1 scant cup blanched unsalted cashew nuts
- 1 teaspoon fine pink Himalayan salt
- Scant 1 cup almond milk (with at least 5% almond content)
- ½ tablespoon apple cider vinegar
- 1½ tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 3 tablespoons tapioca
Method:
- Fill a large bowl with cold water and ice, and set aside.
- Add all the remaining ingredients to a high-speed blender, and blend them together on full speed until smooth and combined, scraping down the sides once or twice, if necessary.
- Transfer the mixture to a saucepan, and cook over medium heat for about 2 minutes, stirring, until the mixture becomes thicker and clumps together. Remove the pan from the heat.
- Using a large spoon, scoop out balls of the cheese mixture and place them into the bowl of ice water. This will rapidly cool the balls, firming them up. Leave in the ice water for about 5 minutes to continue to firm up. They should have a smooth and rubbery texture when they are ready. You can then remove the mozzarella balls from the water using a slotted spoon, and slice them up for recipes.
- Store any leftover mozzarella balls in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.
Excerpted from Purezza Vegan Pizza by Fillippo Rosato, Tim Barclay, and Stefania Evangelisti, reprinted with permission from Kyle Books, 2020.
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Tim Barclay and his wife Stefania Evangelisti set up Purezza in 2015, the UK's first plant-based pizzeria. Tim has a background in marketing and Stefania in law, but they decided to follow their dream and start a plant-based food business. Filippo Rosato, head chef at Purezza, is a pizza enthusiast from Naples. He joined the business on day one and contributed to perfect the menu, introducing the use of wholegrain flours and developing the concept of sourdough Neopolitan style pizza. They all co-authored the book, Purezza Vegan Pizza.