Creamy burrata embraces the season's fresh flavors

As sure as summer's heat brings ripe tomatoes, it also sparks a craving for burrata. They go hand-in-hand, nearly perfect by themselves, utterly profound when combined.If there is a sure thing in cooking, it would be a platter of ripe tomato wedges — use different types for a mix of shapes, sizes and colors — surrounding a ball of burrata, split open to show the creamy, ragged insides. Add a little olive oil, maybe some vinegar, and a good sprinkling of coarse salt and freshly ground pepper and you've got a dish that you'll be dreaming about long after perfect tomatoes have disappeared.
It seems the whole country goes burrata-crazy at this time of year. And why not? Stretch a thin skin of mozzarella around a voluptuous filling of mozzarella rags and cream, and how can that be bad? Funny thing, then, that the cheese was largely unknown in this country until an Apulian immigrant named Vito Girardi started making it at Gioia Cheese in South El Monte in the early '90s.   by Russ Parons