CHEESE OF MY WEEK

On Saturday in my local greengrocer (which happily also has a well-stocked deli section) I found one of my favourite cheeses.

 Stracchino is soft cow’s milk cheese. It is spreadable enough to almost emulate cream cheese. It lacks the rind of brie or camembert and, I feel, has a better flavour than mozzarella, which I am sorry, but I just can’t seem to get. To me it is tasteless, watery and – well, flat. The nearest I got to liking it was in Italy when I tried burrata, a southern Italian (Puglian) variety where the mozzarella is stuffed with cream.

OK, call me a greedy fat-faddist! But stracchino, made by Paesanella Cheese Manufacturers in Haberfield, I feel is light enough (14 percent) to use freely so over the weekend I enjoyed it in two totally different ways: a slab of it on Saturday night in a burrito with some mince sauce I had cooked down with spicy V8 juice (another favourite ingredient), and last night in a salad caprese.

I have to tell you I won’t be using trad mozzarella in this last dish again. Stracchino was the perfect foil for room-temperature tomato slices (dead ripe in Sydney at present and absolutely luscious) sprinkled with shredded basil and good Wollundry Grove  EVOO, salt and pepper. A spoonful of this combo, topping a slice of garlic bread – squisito!