Burrata is a pouch of stretched cow's-milk curd filled with cream and shreds of curd. It comes from Andria, in Puglia, and it is a cheese of the twentieth century.
Cut it open at the table. The filling runs. It is a fresh cheese, meant to be eaten the day you buy it. It does not belong on a high-heat pizza.
History
Burrata was created in Andria, in the inland north of Puglia, in the twentieth century. The region already made mozzarella. The new cheese used that skill to wrap a richer filling. There is no medieval statute and no ancient shepherd's recipe behind it. Treating it as an old peasant staple makes the cheese sound more historical than it is.
The name is linked to burro, butter, which points at the cream inside rather than at a place. For much of its life burrata was a local luxury, because cream and fresh curd do not travel. Refrigeration and fast shipping in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries turned it into a restaurant cheese far from Puglia. The pouch still has the same problem it always had. It is best very fresh.
How it is made
A sheet of warm mozzarella curd is formed into a pouch. The filling, often called stracciatella in this context, is a mix of torn shreds of curd and cream. The pouch is closed, cooled, and packed in liquid. The outside looks like a mozzarella ball. The inside does not.
There is no aging and no rind. A day or two is a long life for the texture people pay for. The outer skin firms as it sits, and the cream filling can sour or soak in until the contrast is gone. Burrata made far from Puglia can be the same shape and still taste flat if the cream is dull or the pouch is old. A label from Puglia does not by itself make the cheese good. Freshness matters most.
Taste
The skin tastes like fresh mozzarella: mild, milky, and salty. The center tastes of sweet cream, with soft strands of curd. Together they should feel rich but clean, not sour and not cheesy in an aged way. A good burrata smells like cold cream and fresh milk.
If the center is missing, rubbery, or sour, the cheese is a mozzarella shell that has lost the point. If the outside is slimy or the liquid smells fermented, do not serve it to guests and call the smell traditional. This cheese has no traditional funk. It is supposed to taste fresh.
In the kitchen
Serve it at room temperature, whole, and cut it where people can see the cream. Tomatoes, olive oil, salt, bread, and a sharp salad are the usual plate. Figs or grilled peaches work when they are in season, because the cheese is rich and needs acid or fruit. A warm plate is enough heat. A blast from a pizza oven is too much.
Do not shred it onto pizza, and do not bake it until the filling boils away. You will spend the money and keep only a chewy skin. Do not plan on leftovers. If you must cook with a leftover, tear it into hot pasta off the flame, with tomatoes, so the cream becomes a quick sauce. Fresh mozzarella is the substitute when you need a stretched cheese that can survive a hotter pan. Stracciatella sold loose, without the pouch, is the filling by itself and can be used the same way.
Around the world
Andria and Puglia remain the reference. The cheese is now made in other parts of Italy and in other countries, and it appears on salads in cities that had never heard of it a generation ago. Restaurants like it because one ball makes a plate look generous.
There is no protected name on this page that turns every pouch into the Andria original. A careful maker anywhere can produce a good fresh burrata, and a careless one in Puglia can produce a dull one. Buy it where the turnover is high. Eat it that day. When a menu says burrata and brings a firm, creamless ball, that is mozzarella under the wrong name.