Burrata Cheese

Burrata (Italian pronunciation: [burˈrata]) is an Italian cow milk cheese (occasionally buffalo milk) made from mozzarella and cream. The outer shell is solid mozzarella, while the inside contains stracciatella and cream, giving it an unusual, soft texture. 

Burrata was born as a way of making use of leftovers from the cheesemaking process. “The cream came from the dense layer formed on top of the morning milking,” said Campanile. At the same time, the cheesemonger would make the stretched curd mozzarella and have some left over. Those mozzarella pieces were stripped with fingers, mixed inside the cream and used as filling for the burrata.

“Back then, the pouch was made by blowing inside the mozzarella,” said Campanile. The cheesemonger blew with energy on a piece of warm and malleable fresh mozzarella to make an inflatable balloon – a technique long abandoned for air compressors for the sake of food safety.

Back then, there was no refrigeration to keep the cheese fresh on the trip to the market, and they had to travel by horse, which could take a day. According to Campanile, Chieppa’s invention overcame some chemical and logistic challenges: the cream would act as a preservative, preventing the leftover mozzarella strips from becoming acidic; and a leaf casing protected the burrata from the heat of the scorching sun.