Caprese Salad

Three ingredients at room temperature, assembled and dressed at the last minute.

Not vegetarian — contains mozzarella whose rennet the source does not name.

Ingredients

• 400 g buffalo mozzarella
• 500 g ripe tomatoes
• a handful of basil leaves
• 4 tablespoons good olive oil
• flaky salt

Method

1. Take the mozzarella out of the fridge an hour before and leave it in its own liquid. Cold mozzarella is squeaky and tastes of almost nothing; at room temperature it goes soft and milky.
2. Slice the tomatoes 1 cm thick, salt them, and stand them on a tilted board for 10 minutes so the water runs off.
3. Tear the mozzarella rather than slicing it. A torn edge is ragged and holds oil; a knife gives you a wet flat face it runs straight off.
4. Lay the tomato and mozzarella on a plate, overlapping.
5. Tear the basil over, pour the oil on, and add a little more salt.
6. SERVE IT IMMEDIATELY. Dressed and left even fifteen minutes, the salt pulls water out of the tomatoes and the plate ends up in a pink pool with the oil floating on it. There is nothing in this dish to hide behind.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Italy · All recipes