Good morning, friends of Italia Squisita!
I'm Antonio Sorrentino, we're in Naples and we'll make a
traditional recipe: mozzarella in carrozza. We chose a particular product, a mozzarella fiordilatte made with cow's milk. The peculiarity of this product is that it is made in an area where there's this inactive Roccamonfina volcano, and where there's basically these pure water springs
used to pull this fiordilatte. We'll be using another great product, "peasant" bread. What's the feature of this bread? There's no yeast, but sourdough, as you can see it's full of air pockets,
and mostly it's a bit stale, it's from the day before, as we're going to put inside this soft and juicy mozzarella to make this traditional recipe.
The grocery list, then is clearly, fiordilatte Sorì, peasant bread,
eggs, flour, salt and pepper. First of all We're cutting this fiordilatte one
centimeter thick. As a reminder, we're using fiordilatte mozzarella as for us, this fiordilatte mozzarella used to be our daily one,
because buffalo mozzarella used to be eaten in celebration days only. As you can see, this cow's milk mozzarella
is nice and fat and gives a great, consistency. The only consideration is to let it dry a bit, so we're taking a bit of paper towel and let it dry. Let's press a bit and
let it rest for 20 minutes or so. Another key ingredient,
the peasant bread. We're always cutting our bread one centimeter thick, lengthwise or you can even cut it in half and then make your slices. Not too thick, nor too thin, just right. Cut the bread slice, slightly taking out the crust. As you can see, you'll obtain even slices. Clearly, someone can ask you: then, if I don't have this extraordinary
peasant bread I can't make this recipe. No, you can make it, why not! I'd use an alternative kind of bread, I wouldn't clearly use sandwich bread, but, for example, a bread that
I have at home and make a bit of recycling. So, our fiordilatte mozzarella is drying, the bread is cut, now we're preparing the binding part,
meaning the eggs. A pinch of salt,
some pepper is always good, and mostly, we're beating them well. You can see when the eggs are well beaten. When you're lifting the fork and it flows like water. As you can see,
in this moment there's still the albumen getting stuck in the fork, so it will stick better to our mozzarella in carrozza. The eggs are done and
we're ready to build our mozzarella. First, we're dunking
our bread slices in the flour. Let's try to keep, let's say, the couples together, so basically we're already making them more or less even, so now it's a given that I'm taking mozzarella, putting it on
the bread and closing the slice, but no. I'm taking mozzarella and soaking it in the eggs. Why? Because the egg we coat the mozzarella with will work as a binder inside the bread. So, we're going to put it in the center of our slice, taking the matching slice and then we're ready. Slightly press, as you can see our slices are perfectly coupled and closed. We're ready to finish our mozzarelle and we're soaking them in the egg. We soaked our mozzarelle well
and we're keeping them in a tray. We're putting them in the fridge for half of an hour, so everything will get firm. We're ready to fry the mozzarella. We put our frying oil on the heat. I'm using a sunflower seeds oil.
Our oil is hot. I'm taking my egg again and
soaking them again, then putting them in my moderately hot oil.
It doesn't have to be too hot, so 165°C, 170-75°C, as you notice it's frying lightly because let's remember: the most
important aspect of mozzarella in carrozza is that it's stringy when we eat it. It's important not to turn it often, we have to turn it once. There's no strings from the egg, as the egg soaked inside the bread. To make them brown on the side,
look at how it perfectly stays upright! we're browning it on the bottom and
on the sides, where it's possible. So, as you noticed we didn't fry our mozzarelle in a deep fryer, but in a pan instead, as it was custom. And our mozzarelle are ready. Look at how brown, dry and puffy it is! And let's see if our mozzarella is perfectly stringy. Our mozzarella in carrozza is done, what's most important is that it's perfectly stringy, because a good mozzarella in carrozza requires a good frying and a great mozzarella fiordilatte is not done here, as we're now showing you two
other great recipes with two other excellencies: buffalo mozzarella POD from Campania and buffalo burrata,
an exception. The name of the second recipe is Milanese-style caprese, as I put together 2 Italian regions: Campania
and Lombardy. We're making a mozzarella caprese breaded in Milanese style. We're matching the two products together: a slice of tomato for salads and a nice buffalo mozzarella.
So, let's go on with the preparation: let's cut the buffalo mozzarella and the tomato, always a finger thick.
As you can see, buffalo mozzarella is completely different from fiordilatte
mozzarella because, as you can see, this is more milky and flaky, it's much softer. It's still elastic, but it has another consistency. When mozzarella is cut, let's go on cutting the tomato, a tomato that is more or less
the size of our mozzarella and if we're using a 125 grams mozzarella, we're using a medium tomato, if we have a big mozzarella let's try to find a tomato that is bigger and cut it the same size of the mozzarella. What's important is to remove
the seeds without breaking it. Once our tomato and mozzarella
are cut, we're taking some paper towel to cover them and dab to let some of the liquid out. Let's dab and let it rest in the fridge for about 20 minutes. To finish our caprese Milanese style, we need
some quite fine breadcrumbs and scented basil. Some procedures are the same as for mozzarella in carrozza, so we're still beating our eggs with salt and pepper and
we're ready to bread our caprese Milanese style. Take the mozzarella that we dabbed before,
still dunking it in flour lightly, and the first secret is to always dunk in the eggs first. So we're now matching our caprese Milanese style: tomato, a small basil leaf,
a small piece of our mozzarella, dunking everything in the egg again and then placing it on our breadcrumbs. So we're covering them with breadcrumbs and make the first breading. Tomato and mozzarella need to be even in size. Let's make the second breading, so the passage in the egg
and then, again, in our bread. we're making these passages again in the breadcrumbs to get more crunchiness after frying. Our caprese Milanese style is ready. Let's rest it in the fridge for half an hour to let it compact, in the meanwhile
let's bread our buffalo burrata. Our ingredients are breadcrumbs, flour, egg and a great buffalo burrata. So, we're taking our buffalo burrata after we rested it a bit from the water. As you can see,
it's a bit drier. We're dunking it in the flour, this is also another product we are going to bread twice. We're dunking it in the egg and placing it in our
breadcrumbs, so, as you can see, gently. We're breading our burrata, clearly always making a double breading. What is important after the breading, attention, double breading, keep it
in the fridge for 2-3 hours. We're ready to fry our two recipes, so the caprese Milanese style and this breaded and fried burrata. Let's start frying the tomatoes first. To fry these two preparations, I suggest you to use a small deep fryer, so that everything that is covered in bread should
not touch the pan on the bottom, but float and be suspended instead in the oil. I'm placing them in, fry a little of them at a time so the temperature
of the oil doesn't drop fast. The oil, this time, should be a little hotter,
our oil should be 180°C, so nice and hot. Let's drop our tomatoes in and we'll see that we'll create a nice browning
around our tomatoes. Look at how nicely browned they are. Our mozzarella is puffy and stringy. Look, on this side is the tomato
and on this side, the mozzarella. Here's our last tomatoes, ready and fried, nice and crunchy, but such a result, guys, can just be obtained through a great frying and a great buffalo mozzarella
POD from Campania. Here is our buffalo burrata, breaded twice and rested. As you notice, it's nice and compact, and we're now dunking it in our hot oil, always at 180°C. See how it fries with the hot oil? Our burrata is sealing with this Maillard reaction on the outside, meaning crunchiness, and soft on the inside. Let's open our burrata and see
if it is nice and soft on the inside. We made traditional mozzarella in carrozza
and the other declinations. My invitation is for you
to try them at home and, most importantly, don't put your hands in the hot oil!
Ciao! Here is the book by Italia Squisita: Original and Gourmet. It features 50 chefs and me, as well! Incredible! What if...
this is not your usual recipe book?