Caught on Tape: Paula Lambert Shows How to Make Fresh Mozzarella

Paula Lambert, Dallas’ queen of cheese, knows a thing or two about mozzarella. She’s won bushels of medals, trophies, awards and critical acclaim for a wide variety of the products she makes in her Deep Ellum cheese factory, Mozzarella Company, which she founded in 1982.

If you study menus and cheese cases around town, you’ll find Lambert’s fresh mozzarella, smoked mozzarella,goat cheeses, and cows milk quesos. The Mansion on Turtle Creek uses them. So does Stephan Pyles. And Kent Rathbun. Even the Ranch in Las Colinas.

From her tiny factory on the spicy edge of Deep Ellum, Lambert and her small staff produce 250,000 pounds of cheese a year–about thirty different products–all of it by hand.

Step into her store any weekday. Depending on what day and time you arrive, you’ll catch cheese makers at work. Just out of sight, in a labyrinth of backrooms, you’ll find thousands of pounds of cheese, each one quietly waiting for enough time to pass for Paula to deem it worthy of release to cheese shops and restaurants all over the country.

Ever tasted her goat cheese wrapped and aged in hoja santa leaves until the herb infuses the tangy cream with licks of sasafras and anise? Or her unpasteurized, aged blanca bianca, a washed rind, raw cow’s milk cheese rubbed every day with white wine and imbued with heady, pungent notes that we stinky cheese lovers crave.

You should.

But what I love most about Paula Lambert and her Mozzarella Company is her passion. She make cheese making seem so uncomplicated and unfussy. She makes fresh milk and some acid come alive. And she loves to teach.

Come with me for a minute–Paula’s mozzarella class is about to start:

If you’d like to learn more–and learn to make fresh ricotta and mozzarella, Lambert teaches hands-on classes in her factory several times a year. Check her Website for dates and times.

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Dallas Mozzarella Company, 2944 Elm Street, Dallas, Texas[/googleMap].  (972)381-8995