Cooking Italy’s Best: Lasagna with Mozarella di Buffala

Whenever my friends and I eat out in an Italian restaurant, the dish I usually order is Lasagna. Lasagna is one of my favorite pasta dishes and I wanted to learn how to cook it. My friend knows how to make lasagna and she makes one of the best in the world. I asked her what cheese she uses because I particularly like its texture and she told me that she uses Mozarella di Bufala with Parmesan and cottage cheese.  

I’m quite familiar with the other cheeses that she mentioned but I’m not sure with Mozarella di Buffala, so I researched on it. From what I have gathered, this comes from the milk of water buffalos. It is manufactured in most parts of the world, but the best ones are believed to be from Italy. Also, this cheese is the most prized among the mozzarella cheeses. It is great for pizza and pasta due to its melting properties and its flavor is delicate, hence it can complement with other ingredients that you put in your dish. It can also stand alone and can be eaten raw or with tomatoes and basil, or any other herbs you wish to add.

So after my research, I tried making my very own lasagna. I prepared the basic ingredients such as the lasagna noodles, lean ground pork and beef, tomato sauce and fresh crush tomatoes. Do not forget your herbs such as your parsley, oregano, basil, garlic and onions. I don’t like black pepper on my lasagna so I skipped that, but you can add them if you want. For the cheese, I prepared my Mozzarella di Bufala, Parmesan and cottage cheese. I added salt and a little bit of sugar to balance the flavor. When everything was cooked, it was delicious and I love how cheesy it was! You can try and make your own according to your taste too. A lot of recipes can be found on the internet. You can buy your ingredients in your local grocery store, and as for your cheese, you can try the best cheese shop around your place so you’ll have the freshest and best ones. 

Mozzarella di Bufala’s Stages of Production

Did you know that buffalo milk is really rich? A cheese maker requires 5 kg of buffalo milk to produce 1 kg of cheese. Also 10 kg of buffalo milk is required to make 1 kg of butter. Mozzarella di Bufala contains more protein and more casein contents which makes buffalo milk more suitable in the production of mozzarella. Making this cheese is really a long process and due to its perishable nature the cheese made will be delivered on the same day.

There are nine production stages which are as follows:

1.       Milk storage – this is when raw buffalo milk is stored in big steel containers.

2.       Milk heating – this means adding some heated treatment to the liquid, then poured into a cream separator.

3.       Curdling – this is when whey is induced.

4.       Curd maturation – this allows the curd to lie in the tubs to reduce acidification until it reaches a pH of 4.95

5.       Spinning – when hot water is poured to the curd to soften it

6.       Shaping – done with a special rotating shaper machine

7.       Cooling – by immersing the cheese in cold water

8.       Pickling – by immersing cheese in pickling tubs containing the original whey

9.       Packaging – cut as bags or in small basins and plastic with a bit of its whey

In Italy, for the first three days, fresh mozzarella is eaten completely naturally - simply cut in half and eat with your fingers!  

When mozzarella is really fresh, you will experience a burst of freshness, the milk will ooze out… southern Italians say that if you don’t have a mess on your face, you are not eating mozzarella!  This is what fresh mozzarella is really about.   Only after four days is it eaten with tomato, fresh basil and olive oil.  That got me a bit hungry; I’d head out to the gourmet cheese shop to get me some Mozzarella di Bufala.