Italy Puglia cooking vacations and wine tours

Burrata is a cheese traditionally made in the North of Puglia (Bari and surroundings). For burrata lovers it has always been impossible to find a cheese artisan who could make Burrata in Lecce and in the South of Puglia. In Lecce the tradition is to eat the super delicious and juicy mozzarella, known as fior di latte.

Today I went to my favorite cheese artisans with the beautiful ladies attending my cheese artisan and market tour. You cannot immagine what a wonderful surprise when we found out they were going to make burrata in front of us!

The burrata was made with the same dough used to make the cow milk mozzarella. First, the dough was very well stretched and kneaded by hand (we don’t use any machine in Puglia).

Then, the dough was filled with lots of mozzarella strips and cream.

Finally, the burrata was closed with a string, immersed in water with salt and let it rest.

The cheese artisan told us that today he had the best weather condition to make the mozzarella.

We tasted the mozzarellas and we could not agree more.

What do you think of burrata?

If you have ever had breakfast in Italy, you may already know that the typical Italian breakfast includes a cappuccino with something sweet: a croissant or a pastry or some biscuits. That’s a must in Italy, no matter where you go: from Milan to Rome, down to Puglia. Very rarely you will see an Italian person have breakfast with those fantastic scrumbled eggs that I used to enjoy when I was living in the US (so good!).

I and Marika love breakfast! It’s really our favorite moment of the day: we love waking up with our fantastic Italian espresso coffee and we like eating a big breakfast. However, we cannot have anything sweet right after we wake up (just give us a couple of hours and we’ll be ready for it!). We need something savory and lots of fruit of course.

So this is our favorite breakfast: pecorino sheep cheese and our home made jam, with some Pugliese bread.
The pecorino sheep cheese comes from a fantastic local cheese maker who has his own sheeps and goats and makes very limited production (just for the family and few loyal customers). I and Marika love supporting him!
For the jam, we hope our guests who attended our cooking classes in Puglia still remember what we are talking about!

Juts out of curiosity: 20 minutes after the above picture was taken, the pecorino cheese was almost gone!!

One of the good things about living in Puglia, apart from the weather, is that you can get the freshet handmade mozzarella at any small little “bottega” or artisan shops.

For Pugliese people, mozzarella is not just another example of cheese, but it belongs to the specific “mozzarella” category. When you go to a restaurant and you ask for some cheese, they will bring you to the table all the most amazing cheese you can think of: Pecorino, Parmigiano etc. But if you want a mozzarella, you need to specifically ask for: a “mozzarella”.

In Puglia there is a big tradition and culture around the mozzarella.

If you try the mozzarella in Puglia, you understand why. It has a high moisture content and is very tender and tasty. And it doesn’t matter if it is a buffalo mozzarella or a cow milk mozzarella (though, the one from Puglia is traditionally the cow milk mozzarella and we call it fior di latte). When you cut a piece of mozzarella with your fork and you have all the milk coming out….you start mouthwatering and you are just in paradise!
I believe the main reason why mozzarella is so good in Puglia is because lots of artisans still hand make the mozzarella, as opposed to using a machine. One of the best food experiences you can have is to eat a mozzarella a few minutes after it was handmade. Can it be any fresher than this?
Mozzarella belongs to the “pasta filata” cheese.

This means that after the milk is curdled, the mozzarella is stretched and kneaded until it gets very soft. The interesting thing is that the artisan stretches the mozzarella dough with his hands and a wooden spoon. However, this is not as painless as when you make a pizza or bread: the mozzarella dough is submerged in VERY HOT water (which can go up to 90°C). So for sure it’s not something for those who have delicate hands and skin!

Mozzarella in Puglia is made from cow milk, whereas in the Naples region, it is made from buffalo milk. When I was little I was told that cow is lighter than buffalo milk. I am not completely sure this is true, but it has always given me a good excuse to eat double portion of mozzarella.
Many times I pointed out that Puglia has many different culinary traditions. The size of the handmade pasta, the way we make the focaccia, the flour we use for bread and pasta, the way we name dishes, may all change from town to town, even if they are just a few miles apart.
Of course this also applies to the mozzarella. When you are talking about mozzarella in the Bari area (the Northern part of Puglia) you are certainly referring to the burrata. Burrata is a mozzarella which has inside a mix of cream and mozzarella.
In the Lecce area (Southern part of Puglia), instead, it is very rare to find the burrata and it is not very common for the local people to eat it. In Lecce, locals would eat the simplest and tasty fior di latte mozzarella made from cow milk. The fior di latte comes in many different shapes: the small nodini (knods), the beautiful trecce (braids) and the wonderful and huge “bombe” (YES! It means bombs!..because of their size).

All artisans say that handmade mozzarella can last up to one week. I never succeeded with this sort of experiment because I always finished my mozzarella in the same day it was made. However, if you want to keep the mozzarella for more days, put it in a bowl and cover it with milk! That’s the secret!

Have you ever tried a mozzarella from Puglia? How much mozzarella were you able to eat? (including the one you stole from your friend’s plate!)