Why everyone loves the burrata

Asian burrata salad at Foo in Bengaluru.

LAST PUBLISHED 26.05.2023 | 09:11 AM IST

The burrata, a big dumpling of cheese, makes for excellent conversation, whether it’s about the subtlety of flavour, the familiarity in texture—it does remind one of malai—how good it looks on the plate, and so on—till you bite into it and your mouth is filled with a burst of pure creaminess. Then you just need to savour the delicate flavour of the cheese, the way it coats your tongue, leaving a film of cream.

If you grew up in a household that made its own chhena (Indian farmer’s cheese or unripened curd cheese), you may remember balls of clean white muslin dangling in the kitchen and the faint aroma of curdled milk. The burrata does remind one of that ball of white muslin, somewhat vaguely.

Today, it finds place on menus across the country, from lavish chaats in a posh Delhi restaurant to a pizza in Jaipur, a salad in Mumbai and the main feature on a dish at a Bengaluru restaurant. Its sheer flexibility is giving two of the most commonly used cheeses—the mozzarella and Brie—stiff competition.