Beautiful burrata A
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We’ll persist, though, for the time being, with our more summery recipes, because it’s defeatist to cave in to the miserable weather and start making pies and stews quite so early in the year. There was a brief temptation to light the fire last week, but we resisted and just wrapped up.
It is still, technically summer after all, and we should take advantage of what’s coming to us from the more sun-kissed parts of the continent. Although, I’m not sure I’d find the high 30s, where many of today’s ingredients hail from, any more comfortable. The relentless heat across the southern Mediterranean has endangered crop yields every bit as much as our deluges and wind.
However, the apricots are in good shape, and arriving in droves from around the Med. I do love a good apricot – of all the stonefruit, she’s my favourite, being more perfumed and tart than her larger cousins, and apricots are so very versatile, across every dimension of cooking; sauces, ices, cakes, pies and tarts. Stuffed into pork joints, roasted with game birds, folded into pâtés and parfaits. So helpful.
And their timing is perfect, for I’d just seen a great-looking recipe from one of my favourite cooks, a chap called Chris Cosentino, who makes amazing charcuterie and runs a wonderful restaurant, Cockscomb, in San Francisco.
He’s brilliant at making simple, enticing dishes from the very freshest seasonal stuff, and a recent photo of his original of this dish had me drooling. I simply had to try it.
It’s made using our lovely ripe apricots, paired with fresh salad leaves and the almighty burrata cheese. If you’ve not heard of burrata before, get ready. It’s incredible stuff – if you like mozzarella, you’ll flip your lid over burrata.
Hailing from the Apulia region (the ‘heel’ of Italy’s ‘boot’) it’s made, like most mozzarella, from cow’s milk. Where mozzarella is simply kneaded to form that traditional elastic texture, burrata is made by folding a disc of the cheese around a filling made of shredded mozzarella (straciatella), and full-fat rich cream. It’s then tied up like a little purse and immersed in brine.
When cut, it flows and oozes, and the taste is pure, unctuous creaminess, with that slight acidic bite that mozzarella lovers will know all about.
Texturally it’s soft and yielding, perfect for a supercharged caprese salad, or simply to be enjoyed with some Italian charcuterie and fresh figs or grapes. Amazing stuff. Not easy to find, though, and by no means cheap,
I implore you nonetheless to search for some. It’s available in Waitrose supermarkets, or online at www.lalatteria.co.uk/shop. Of course, really top-quality mozzarella will be acceptable as a substitute.
So, along with our incredible burrata and our tip-top apricots, we’re grilling up a thin slice of sourdough loaf – shop-bought is fine, and there are plenty of good local bakeries making outstanding sourdoughs – and finishing things off with a little lick of heat from some home-made chili oil and the lemon freshness of verbena leaves.
The whole dish comes together impeccably – the sharpness of the fruit, the creaminess of the cheese, the crunch of the toast, the cool crisp leaves and that residual warmth from the chili.
A great way to enjoy the summery things before they’re gone for another year, and a devastatingly simple recipe that can be brought together at the last minute.