Liz’s sister, Michael-ann, was in France and sent her this video. In her words, “This was in our little breakfast kitchen where we stayed in the country side. Instead of going out to dinner, we bought a bunch of yummy cheese and charcuterie from local farmers and had our own party.”
When I lived out West I was introduced to cheese of many different kinds and I recall thinking, “Where have I been?” It was an eye-opener. With this post, I want to share my newest amore named Mozzarella di bufula.
I love Mozzarella di bufula for many reasons: it’s so darn good and it’s an essential part of Italian cuisine, to name just two. It has to be on our menu! But what is it?
It is Buffalo Mozzarella, meaning it uses milk from water buffaloes.
Although it is made in many countries around the world, using milk from their own herds of water buffaloes, some believe Italy and Bulgaria have the best dairy water buffaloes. Right now, we do know that the Italians are proven to be the masters of making Mozzarella di bufula!
Unlike the blocks of processed cheese we had when were kids, or the bags of shredded / grated Mozzarella which are readily available in our local grocery stores, ‘buffalo mozzarella’ is balls of white cheese that come in various sizes and, in our opinion, a superior mozzarella.
We’ve learned that the richness and quality of Buffalo milk yields much better than a cow’s milk.
With our menu, we’re taking the approach of bringing you the most authentic experiences we can. It starts by sourcing the best products we can find and serving them to you, including Mozzarella di bufula.
Some of you experienced it for the first time when you tasted our Italian by Night “Inverno” (winter) menu. It blended nicely with our Antipasti platter, and also had great reviews when we served it with a drizzle of our house-made pesto and foccacia bread.
With the arrival of spring and our seasonal menu, we’d like to share Mozzarella di bufula with you as Crostini Primavera (Spring). This is where we build on a crostini (grilled bread), by adding chopped seasoned tomato salad, Mozzarella di bufula and aged proscuitto di parma. It’s all finished off in the oven and served to you with amore!
There are many ways to get up close and personal with your Mozzarella di bufala; it’s not a taste that will bite you on your tongue. In all honesty, it has no distinct flavour on its own. It’s what you do with it that makes people ask, “Mmm … what cheese is this?”
You can get creative too! For example, try something as simple as a caprese salad with two types of tomatoes, a drizzle of olive oil and cracked salt and pepper.
You can find out more about Mozzarella di bufula on Wikipedia. You can also have a look at the site Mozzarelladibufala.org, “Campana buffalo’s mozzarella cheese.”
“Don’t send flowers on my birthday, send cheese!”
