In this recipe from EatWisconsinCheese.com, burrata provides a different take on a fruit and cheese dessert. It’s more special than simply putting out a platter of cheeses and fruits, but not much more difficult.

 
RECIPE: BURRATA & FRUIT

Ingredients

A simple dessert with delicious, fresh flavors. Photo courtesy EatWisconsinCheese.com.

Preparation

1. SCOOP granola into an individual bowl or onto a dessert plate.

2. SLICE fruit and arrange atop granola.

3. TOP with two quarters of a burrata.

4. DRIZZLE with honey and garnish with chopped pistachio nuts.

Burrata is a fresh Italian cheese, creamy and luscious, made in the Apulia region of Italy. The name means “buttery” in Italian. It’s a hollow ball of mozzarella di bufala, filled with panna, cream that contains scraps of mozzarella left over from mozzarella-making.

How Burrata Is Made

Small pieces of mozzarella curd are soaked in a bath of hot water and sea salt. The cheese is then cooked and stretched with a wooden spoon until the curds can be stretched to create a pouch. The pouch is filled with a combination of mascarpone cheese, ricotta cheese and heavy cream, and tied off with a knot.

Some cheese makers use different recipes, but the center is always a rich, oozing cream. When you cut into the ball, the cream oozes out.

In Italy, the cheese is packed into plastic bags with a bit whey to keep it moist, and the bag is tied with a fronds of an Italian plant called asphodel, a relative of the leek. The cheese is highly perishable, and the leaf is an indicator of freshness. As long as the leaf is still fresh and green, the cheese within is still fresh. Dried-out leaves mean a cheese is past its prime.

This addictively good cheese was created by a mother (or father) of invention, in the Puglia region of southern Italy. Cheesemakers had curds left over from making mozzarella.

Somewhere around 1920 in the town of Andria, a member of the Bianchini family figured out how to repurpose the curds, and burrata was born. It was a local product, premium priced, and remained the delight of the townspeople only for some thirty years.

In the 1950s, some of the local cheese factories began to produce burrata, and more people discovered its charms. Only in recent years, thanks to more economical overnighting of refrigerated products, did we find it in New York City’s finest cheese shops.

It was love at first bite.

Burrata Today

When we first wrote about burrata seven years ago it was hard to come by, made only in Puglia and flown to the U.S. The limited amount that was imported went straight to top cheese stores; the minute it appeared on store shelves, it was snatched up by burrata lovers on the prowl. (We knew what day of the week the plane set down.)

But that’s old news. Since then, American cheese makers have been making burrata, and much of it is just as delicious and creamy as the Apulian product.

Burrata works with sweet or savory pairings. In addition to fruit (figs, pears…any fruit, really), serve it as a first course, cheese course, light lunch or snack:

 
Once, at the end of a trade show, we were given several burratas to take home. We used three of them to top a pizza: a memorable luxury.

For breakfast the next day, we married the burrata with pan-fried slices of herbed polenta and sundried tomatoes, but it could just as easily have been fruit and honey.

The memories still resonate happily, whenever we pass a cheese case.

We often make a “double cookie dough” ice cream sandwich: chocolate chip cookies with cookie dough ice cream. But this recipe from McCormick uses raw cookie dough—not baked—as the sandwich.

You make the cookie dough yourself, and don’t need to add eggs since it won’t be baked. Or, you can use pasteurized eggs.

RECIPE: COOKIE DOUGH ICE CREAM SANDWICHES

Ingredients For 16 Bars

1. MICROWAVE the butter and sugars in large microwavable bowl on HIGH 1 1/2 to 2 minutes, stirring after 1 minute. Stir until mixture is melted and smooth.

2. STIR in milk, vanilla and salt. Add flour; stir until well blended. Refrigerate 15 minutes. Stir in chocolate chips.

3. LINE an 8-inch square pan with foil, with ends of foil extending over sides of pan. Press 1/2 of the dough into pan.

4. ROLL out remaining dough on lightly floured surface to 8-inch square. Gently spread ice cream over layer on pan. Place 8-inch square layer over ice cream. (If the dough layer is too warm, freeze for 15 minutes before placing over ice cream.)

5. COVER with foil. Freeze 2 hours or until firm. Cut into 16 bars. Wrap each in plastic wrap. Store in freezer.
 
NATIONAL ICE CREAM DAY IS AUGUST 2ND

See all the food holidays.
NATION

Looking for a fun activity? How about making lollipops?

Today is National Lollipop Day July 20th, and Exploratorium has a recipe that lets you be a lollipop chef.

You can make favorite flavors that aren’t often found in commercial products. We’ve got anise, banana, hazelnut, mint, and rum extracts that are just waiting to flavor lollys (the original spelling).

The other ingredients include sugar, corn syrup, water, cream of tartar, and liquid food coloring.

You can mix up standard or unusual colors with food coloring; but the idea that really appeals to us comes from Sacred Sweets in Greenport, New York.

They turn lollipops into edible art with:

 
 
LOLLIPOP HISTORY

Lollipop sophistication has come a long way since prehistoric man licked honey off the stick he used to scrape it from the beehive.

The ancient Arabs, Chinese, and Egyptians made fruit and nut confections candied in honey, which may also have been eaten from sticks, owing to the stickiness of the confection.

But what we think of as a lollipop may date to Europe in the Middle Ages, when sugar was boiled and formed onto sticks as treats for the wealthy—the only people who could afford sugar.

Beginning in the later part of the 18th century, industry, including confectionery, became mechanized. Horehound drops, lemon drops, peppermints, and wintergreen lozenges became everyday candies.

While we don’t know the inventor of the modern lollipop, the first automated lollipop machine was invented in Racine, Wisconsin in 1908. The Racine Confectionery Machine Company’s machine put hard candy discs on the end of sticks, producing 2400 lollipops per hour, 57,000 per day. Today’s machines can produce 3 million lollipops daily.

Far beyond the specialty Blow Pops, Tootsie Pops, Sugar Daddys of childhood, today’s lollipops come in all shapes and sizes, from hand-crafted works of sugar art to caffeinated Java Pops and bacon lollipops.

And handcrafted lollipops still exist, made by companies like Hammond’s Candies, where artisans coil ropes of boiled hard candy into colorful jumbo lollipops.
 
 
SEE’S LOLLYPOPS: SOMETHING DIFFERENT

See’s Candies chooses the original spelling for its “lollypops,” but perhaps that’s to differentiate the creamy candy-on-a-stick from conventional lollys.

See’s are made with butter and heavy cream, in a square shape (see photo at right).

Available in butterscotch, café latté, chocolate, chocolate orange, root beer, and vanilla (plus holiday flavors), they have the consistency of butterscotch and are certified kosher by KSA.

And they’re addictive! Treat yourself to some at Sees.com.

[2] A recent take: the Grapefruit Daiquirí, substituting grapefruit juice for the lime (photo © Ruth’s Chris Steak House).

[3] A Hawthorne strainer. This one is from Williams Sonoma.

July 19th is National Daiquirí Day.

A Daiquirí (pronounced DAK-uh-ree in English, but die-kee-REE in the native Taíno language) is a combination of rum, lime juice, and sugar or another sweetener (we use agave nectar).

It’s well known as one of the favorite drinks of writer Ernest Hemingway, and less well known as a favorite of President John F. Kennedy (Jackie trained the White House staff to make them).

> The original recipes and three popular variations are below.
 
 

DAIQUIRÍ HISTORY

The cocktail was invented in 1898 at the El Floridita bar in the tropical heat of the Cuban town of Daiquirí, near Santiago, Cuba, home of an iron mine.

Jennings Cox, an American mining engineer working at the mine, had the bartender shake Bacardi rum, sugar, and lime with ice.

A tall glass (Collins glass) was packed with cracked ice; a teaspoon of sugar was sprinkled over the ice and the juice of one or two limes was squeezed over the sugar. Two or three ounces of white rum were added, and the mixture was stirred with a long-handled spoon. (Later versions used a shaker and other proportions*.) 

The group of mining engineers declared it a hit and named it after the town (or was it the mine? There’s also a beach there called Daiquirí).

Word spread and the top bartenders in Havana were shaking it up in no time. It is also possible that William Astor Chanler, Sr., a U.S. congressman who purchased the Santiago Iron Mines in 1902, introduced the Daiquirí to clubs in New York at that time.

In 1909, Rear Admiral Lucius W. Johnson, a U.S. Navy medical officer, introduced the drink to the Army and Navy Club in Washington, D.C. [source].

The Daiquirí is one of the six classic cocktails highlighted in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, first published in 1948 and still in print (here’s the 2008 edition). The others included:

 
The Daiquirí is the basis for all Tiki drinks (Mai Tai, Planter’s Punch, Scorpion, etc.

________________

*Original Daiquirí Recipe. For 1 drink: 1-1/2 ounces light/white rum, 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, 1 ounce of simple syrup. Place the sugar and lime juice into a cocktail shaker and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add the rum and fill the shaker with ice: half of ice cubes, topped with half of crushed ice. Shake vigorously until thoroughly chilled; strain into a chilled coupette (cocktail glass).
 

As with just about any cocktail, many variations of the Daiquirí have proliferated.

One of the easiest ways to enhance the flavor is by substituting the lime juice for another citrus. Grapefruit and yuzu are our two favorites. Try this delicious Yuzu Daiquirí Recipe.

Another of our favorite substitutions uses 2 tablespoons of triple sec or other orange liqueur instead of the sugar.

And, a with the Margarita, fruit purées can be introduced to create a Lychee Daiquirí, Pineapple Daiquirí, Strawberry Daiquirí, etc. Add pomegranate juice for a Pomegranate Daiquirí.

THE ORIGINAL DAIQUIRÍ EVOLVES

After the recipe traveled from Daiquirí to Havana, Constantino Ribailagua, a bartender at El Floridita bar and restaurant in OldHavana, created three variations. We got these recipes from Bacardi, whose rum was used. You’ll need a cocktail shaker and a strainer.
 
 
RECIPE: NO. 2 DAIQUIRÍ

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE all ingredients except zest in a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes and crushed ice. Give it all a good, hard shake until the cocktail shaker is cold.

2. STRAIN the mixture into a chilled glass. Garnish with orange zest.

This variation on the classic Daiquirí is often referred to as the Hemingway Daiquirí. Serve it in a rocks glass.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE the first five ingredients and shake vigorously with ice cubes, until the cocktail shaker is cold.

2. STRAIN into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice. Garnish and serve.
 
 
RECIPE: NO. 4 DAIQUIRÍ

Ribailagua tweaked the No. 3 Daiquirí to achieve subtle variations. No. 4 Daiquirí is a more perfumed aroma and a slightly sweeter drink.

Ingredients

 
Preparation

1. COMBINE the ingredients in a cocktail shaker filled with ice cubes and crushed ice. Shake vigorously until the cocktail shaker is cold.

2. DOUBLE STRAIN the mix into a chilled glass by passing it through a hawthorne strainer (bar strainer) and then through a tea strainer. If you don’t have a hawthorne strainer you can just pass it once through a tea strainer. Garnish with a maraschino cherry.
 
How to celebrate National Daiquirí Day? Try all four—split with a friend, of course.
 
 

To a bed of frisée, the chef adds:

 
This recipe also includes a bundle of asparagus, creating a heartier salad course or vegetarian entrée.

But the “big idea” ingredient is the poached egg. The humble breakfast food; when paired with other ingredients, adds a unique glamor.

The smooth texture of the poached egg white contrasts nicely with the rough salad ingredients; the broken yoke adds a silky sauce on top of the delicious truffle vinaigrette. (For this reason, go lightly when you toss the frisée with the vinaigrette.)

1. FILL a large, deep saucepan with 2 inches of water. Add 1 tablespoon vinegar; bring to boil. Reduce heat to medium.

2. BREAK 1 egg into small dish. Carefully slide the egg into the simmering water (bubbles should begin to break the surface of the water). Repeat with the remaining eggs. Poach the eggs for 3 to 5 minutes or until the whites are completely set and the yolks begin to thicken.

3. CAREFULLY REMOVE the eggs with slotted spoon. Drain on paper towels.

If you’re not adept at poaching eggs, try these egg poaching pods. The uniform roundness they create isn’t as attractive as a naturally-poached egg, but it beats the frustration of trying to harness meandering egg whites.

 
ASSEMBLE THE SALAD

1. COOK the lardons; set aside. You’ll note in the photo above that the lardons are cut in large slices. You can cut them into smaller cubes, into julienne strips, or however you like. Plan for two or three lardons per plate.

2. CUT the prosciutto as needed into smaller strips. If you cut a slice in half lengthwise, try rolling it into a “rose” or similar shape for aesthetic effect. One “rose” per plate is sufficient.

3. TOSS the frisée with vinaigrette (you can first warm the vinaigrette in the microwave for 10 seconds) and distribute among individual salad plates. Top with the pork belly and prosciutto.

4. NESTLE the poached egg atop the greens. Top with shaved grana padano and scatter the croutons. Serve with a pepper mill for fresh-ground pepper.

It’s a favorite of ours! Here are more ideas for frisée salad.

But there’s more!

 
POACHED EGG & GRILLED VEGGIES

We “poached” this idea from the Facebook page of The Guilded Nut, which specializes in flavored pistachio nuts (Garlic, Habanero, Mediterranean Herb, Sea Salt & Pepper).

Here, a poached egg is surrounded by grilled scallions and garnished with chopped pistachios.

You can use any grilled vegetables, including leftovers. Heat them in a skillet or in the microwave and serve them with the egg(s). Grated Grana Padano or Parmesan works well here, too.