What is real burrata and how can you recognize it?
I never understood the hype around burrata. Yes, I do eat it, but I also think it’s a limp imitation of (buffalo) mozzarella, and I regularly try to get that point across to other people. With very little success. I can rarely convince them on the spot with a truly good mozzarella di bufala either. Because that’s a completely different thing from the supermarket mozzarella we know, and it’s best eaten fresh. What did Keuringsdienst van Waarde tell us? Supermarkets make an even bigger mess of burrata. In fact: when you bring home one of those tubs, you’re not even eating real burrata.
Burrata IGP
Burrata is made with nothing but incredibly fresh milk. It can’t be made by machine; it has to be done by hand. That’s the added value of the real product. Only salt and water are added to the curd from which mozzarella is first made. Spinning the curd makes it smooth as porcelain. The mozzarella paste is then torn into pieces by hand, giving you stracciatella. Hence the name: stracciatella comes from the verb stracciare, meaning to tear into pieces.
Real burrata is a hand-shaped little pouch of mozzarella, filled with stracciatella and a little cream. You can spot it immediately at the cheesemonger, where the pouch is tied shut at the top to keep the filling inside. Cut it open and it becomes a milky ball whose strands you can pull apart.
Fake burrata from the supermarket
What are we eating? Something that resembles it, but technically shouldn’t be allowed to carry the name. However, that name isn’t certified, so it’s legal. It’s a product that uses the name, but to Italians it isn’t burrata.
First of all, you can recognize it by the preservatives, which have no place in burrata. Real burrata is fresh and should be eaten within 3 to 4 days of production. The fresher, the better. So tubs from the supermarket that are still good for another month can’t be the real thing. Fake burrata is also not made by hand, but by a mozzarella machine. Those machines produce around 35,000 balls a day. The machine makes the mozzarella, grinds it into pieces and adds the cream. You can no longer taste the milk; it has been pasteurized, and the preservatives ruin the flavor as well.
It’s not that the Italians are angry about this burrata trick, by the way. Not at all—they’re actually the ones in charge of the fake-food market, and your supermarket burrata usually comes from Italy too. The funny thing is that they don’t eat it themselves. It isn’t even sold in their own country.
Stracciatella cheese as an alternative
Personally, if I buy it at the supermarket, I prefer stracciatella, its neighbor on the shelf. It contains the preservative potassium sorbate just as well and is also made from pasteurized milk, but at least you’re not paying for the fairly pointless casing that you immediately mutilate anyway on a sandwich or in a salad. Stracciatella costs slightly less, but you still pay three euros for it.
Buying real burrata di Andria
If you want your burrata truly fresh, there are also buffalo farms in the Netherlands that make burrata with raw milk. Lindenhoff, for example, sells it online. Finally, there are of course cheesemongers who are passionate about their craft and import burrata di Puglia, burrata di Andria or burrata IGP. So ask around, and eat it at home very soon afterward. And if you’re in Puglia, you can find the best burrata here in the region. It tastes completely different from that bland little ball of cream from back home.
Also read:
- Delicious and easy Caesar salad
- Hotspot: Oriole Garden Bistro
- Tiny Danser is the place for an Italian aperitivo
Source: Italiamo
