THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT: MOZZARELLA

Why is it called mozzarella?
The name derives from the fact that the stretched pasta obtained from curd is “mozzata”, cut by cheese makers to be modeled in its characteristic, globular, braided or bocconcini shapes. In Campania this has been done for at least 500 years.

Originally the mozzarella was only buffalo
Once, mozzarella was made only with buffalo's milk, and just in some provinces of southern Italy (Naples, Caserta, Salerno, Benevento, Latina, Manfredonia, Gioia del Colle). Intensive breeding of water Buffalo is not possible, and this guarantees them a minimum well-being. Their milk, compared to the vaccine, has almost double dry substance and a greater percentage of proteins and fats, including the "good" unsaturated as, for instance, oleic acid.

Buffalo milk makes almost double
With the processing of a quintal of buffalo's milk, more than 24 kg of mozzarella are obtained, compared to the 13 kg obtained from a quintal of cow's milk.

It is protected
Traditional mozzarella is a guaranteed geographic specialty and can have the STG certification if it is produced in full respect of local rules.

Buffalo Campana mozzarella has the DOP label certification, which assure that it cannot be produced elsewhere, with different ingredients or with different methods.

It is not thin but it is not even high calorie
It is wrong to consider mozzarella as a lean cheese because it must be made with whole milk. It is unnatural, impossible and forbidden to produce cheese without fat. But it is also true that fresh, quick-maturing cheeses have more water and, consequently, give less calories at the equal weight than the more dense seasoned cheeses. Seasoned cheeses are sometimes more digestible. With the aging, the characteristic protein of milk (casein) is transformed into peptones and amino acids that are a little easier for the body to assimilate. It also depends
from the quantity of fat that reduces the action of gastric juices. Finally, the temperature of the curd also counts, for which cooked pasta cheeses (Grana Padano or Parmigiano Reggiano) are more digestible than raw pasta cheese.

It must be kept in its serum
The mozzarella must be preserved in a small quantity of salted serum.

It should not be frozen
The mozzarella should not be put in the frozen compartment because the change from the temperature of 18 ° c subzero to the room temperature affects
negatively on the characteristic taste and consistency that risks to become a little floury.

Stracciatella and Burrata have the same pasta
Stracciatella Pugliese is a delicacy made with hand-breaked mozzarella shapes mixed with whey or cream. The Burrata is the bag of pasta filata blown like a balloon that is filled with Stracciatella. The preparation was invented in a dairy in Andria in the first of the last century in order to not throw out the residues of the processing of the mozzarella, taking up the last brand of mozzarella from the spinning water and recovering the fatty part of the whey.