Blood Orange and Burrata Salad

By way of introduction:  I am a burrata junkie.  

The first time I traveled to Italy, I rode the rails with my discounted eurorail pass.  It was autumn, the weather was fine, and I had no real idea what these places I was to visit might be all about.  Venice to Milan to Bologna to Florence to Rome, I was getting off the train to spend a few unplanned days in each place, staying in cheap hostels and wearing out my one pair of boots that I had brought along.  I found the Roman hostels to be a bit sketchy, so I took the step of then renting a tiny flat for a few weeks in the Roman suburbs.  It was a pretty sublime introduction to some beautiful old cities of one of the most touristed countries in the world.  Although I must admit I was pretty sick of Jesus art fairly quickly, I was lucky in my experiences and really enjoyed my time there, and after a while smiling and saying my Per Favors and Grazies came automatically.  

This is the kind of slow travel that I love.  Really taking your time to get to know a place, observing the rhythms of daily life.  Ah, and the food!  The food, the food.  I almost never eat Italian food outside of Italy because the simple magic of anything grown or made there instantly dissolves once you hit the border.  Blessed with pleasant climates and fertile soil, the produce is outstandingly good, very fresh, and lovingly procured each morning by nonnas and chefs alike at the local outdoor market that would pop up along the sidewalk and be gone by noon.

While in Rome, I would roll out of bed in the morning, take a two-minute shower before the tiny hot water tank ran out of love for me, and then head down to my local outdoor market.  Every morning, I would seek out some fresh bread, fruit and cheese and have myself a little morning picnic Tiber-side while watching men in natty slim-fitting suits and women with the highest of heels and chic dresses hustle off to work before I headed over to check out the countless galleries and ancient monuments that make up Rome. 

Having a home base outside of the tourist zone was the best idea I could have possibly had.  Not only was it filled with friendly cafes and traditional osterias serving loads of good food and wine, it was remarkably free of the busloads of tourist, and the dining options much cheaper and better than the scrum of over-cheesed pasta-slinging mama mia joints.  I was on a tight in-between-jobs budge but I would like to think I ate like royalty every meal.  In my terrible pick-it-up-as-I-need-it Italian, I would do quite a bit of guess work as to what I might be ordering for dinner, as English was not the default language in this part of town, asking the waiter shyly, "si tratta di un pesce? è un vegetale?" just to make sure I wasn't getting tripe or brains or something else that I find unsavory.  Happily, I am an adventurous eater.

It was always delicious- stuffed squash blossoms and homemade pastas with bitter greens and chili and olive oil, a jug of house wine on the table for a pittance that didn't make you pucker, and a bottle of grappa plunked down on the table once I had paid my bill.  I would dutifully take a tearful sip and then run before they poured me another of the grappa.  They are married to tradition, but oh! what tradition it is.

In these exchanges at the morning market, I was constantly trying the new varietals of things I had never heard of or seen before, which I found much more enjoyable than merely guessing at what I would get from a restaurant menu.  The vendors, friendly and chatty, would help me choose my fruit and send me on my way.  Two things that I discovered in that market- these brown pears (like boscs?) that were the size of my head.  I would need two hands to lift them to my face, and proceed to slick  myself with pear juice with every bite.  I have yet to find a pear that good again, and I'm back to being somewhat content with your every day run of the mill pear, as hard and flavorless as it might be.  The other thing that I ate voraciously and without tire was a cheese, dripping with cream, distinctively topknot-wrapped in bright green leaves.

Burrata.

Which means "buttered".

This cheese is indescribably good.  I will spend the rest of my life chasing my burrata high, looking for that perfectly creamy dumpling of mozzarella and cream.  When it's fresh, it's the only food you will want for the rest of your life.  It has humble beginnings: cheesemakers in Puliga (the wild and rural heel of the boot) would use their leftover mozzarella scraps to form a ball of cheese, which was filled with cream.  This is what they would take home at the end of the day to feed their family.  That green leaf that it is tied with?  The shade of green it is lets your know if its past its prime, as you only want it within the first 24 hours of its life, and never ever more than 48.  This is the mayfly of cheeses.

That is why this is so precious.  You will never get burrata as good as that.  Even being in Rome I was stretching the geographical boundaries of where good burrata can be found.  If you can get fresh burrata any where else, it's got a slight sourness to it, the crust is too tough and rubbery.  It's jet-lagged.  Still, sub par burrata is better than no burrata at all.  I continue to try and recapture that feeling of Rome.  

After I would wolf down my pear, use the fresh bread to sop up the leaking cream of the milky fresh burrata, I would feel much happiness.  True, I was a stranger here- I knew no one and didn't speak the language and had spent the past couple months without hearing or seeing anyone familiar- but a sense of contentment and belonging would take over and I would cheerily wander around until lunch time, where an excuse to have a pastry or gelato would present itself.  The Romans were kind to me: covered in pear juice and an unexpected spurt of cream on my jacket and just generally looking sticky with traces of soap still in my hair, they never turned me away.  I guess the fact that the city's founders were raised by wolves gave me a bit of a pass on that one.

That brings me to the recipe.  I am frequently at war in the kitchen- coaxing sauces not to curdle, violently mincing garlic, getting the perfect crust to form on a lamb chop while keeping it perfectly pink on the inside.  I'm a mess, I make a mess, and yet I enjoy it thoroughly.  I feel like home cooking is a lost art, something we are all too busy to take the time to do.  Yet...it can be very simple, and much healthier than something that came from the store in cellophane and a way to make happy connections with our pasts.

Since moving to London I have been much dismayed by the state of vegetable cooking here.  If I'm at a pub and order a side of vege what I get is this:  A dish.  It has vegetables in it.  The vegetables are usually peas and or carrots, sometimes broccoli or green beans.  They appear to have come from a bag in the freezer.  They have been microwaved until hot, then plunked down in front of me without a squeeze of lemon or garnish or ceremony.  They taste, predictably, like the seventh level of hell if vegetables went to hell.  They make me want to cry they are so terrible.

And we wonder why people aren't eating more vegetables.

Arrive our hero, Yotam Ottolenghi.  He opened a few upscale deli-style cafes around London, and a posh place in Soho called Nopi where the beautiful people go.  While I'm usually not a fan-girl of celebrity chefdom, this man does magic with vegetables.  He respects them, he coaxes the best out of them with unexpected twists and flavors.  I ran out and bought his cookbook "Plenty", and I can honestly say that I haven't had a failure yet.  Swoon.

This recipe you won't find in any of his cookbooks as far as I know.  I had a dish at Nopi a little while back and it's easy to recreate at home.  They had me at burrata and it was unexpected and delicious in the the mad combination of pieces that made it whole.  I wrote it down the best of my memory and make this as my go-to when I can be bothered to do anything with burrata upon bringing it home instead of just tearing into it like a crazed she-wolf the moment the door slams behind me.  The ingredients look weird together, but TRUST ME, they come together to make something tangy and bitter and spicy and creamy and sweet and it will be gone before you know it.   It's perfect for winter, when blood oranges and their dramatic ruby blush are at their peak but you could probably sub some clementines or tangerines if need be.  It's my favorite kind of meal- a few perfect ingredients thrown together without too much washing up to do afterwards.

If you absolutely can not find fresh burrata where you live, my heart cries for you, but you could probably do just fine with a milky buffalo's milk mozzarella.

Recipe:  Blood Orange and Burrata Salad
Serves 2

2 blood oranges
1 ball of the freshest Burrata you can manage to acquire
1 tablespoon/14 g of coriander seeds
A couple handfuls of lettuce leaves: lambs lettuce would work nicely here
1 teaspoon /7ml runny honey
good balsamic vinegar and olive oil for drizzling
Sea salt
Bread, for serving

Peel the blood oranges and roughly chop or tear them into wedges.  Transfer them into a serving bowl or big plate along with the juices that have made a mess of your cutting board along with the lettuce.

Heat a fry pan on medium-low heat.  Add the coriander seeds.  Toss them around near constantly and watch them like a hawk.  They will become pleasantly fragrant, turn a toasty brown color, and begin to make soft popping noises.  Cut the heat when they begin to pop and don't let them cook for a second more.  This should only take a couple minutes.  Do not be tempted to skip this toasting step!  It transforms the seeds into earthy, lemony little bits of popcorn.

Place the burrata on the plate atop your salad and oranges.  Drizzle with honey, a little olive oil and balsamic.  Sprinkle with sea salt and the toasted coriander seeds.  Serve with good bread to mop up all the goodness at the bottom of the plate.  Pour a glass of wine and enjoy la dolce vita!