I have been seeing these beautiful salads all over the internet lately (well, mostly Pinterest, really) called Caprese salads. This may be old news to you, (if so, ignore this next bit) but its new and exciting for me!!
The ingredients for this are: fresh tomatoes preferably not refridgerated, a soft ball of mozzarella cheese, extra virgin olive oil, fresh basil, and salt (I forgot to put the salt into the picture).
This is such a simple dish. Essentially, you slice the tomatoes and the mozzarella and over lap them a bit on the plate (I don't even know if it makes a difference to have the tomatoes on top of the mozzarella, or the mozzarella on top of the tomatoes). The pictures I have seen show whole, entire basil leaves scattered around on top, but I personally do not want to eat an entire leaf, so I cut them up a bit and sprinkled them around. I do not have a handy dandy olive oil drizzler, so I just slowly poured a fine stream of olive oil out of the bottle on top of everything, and then a dash of some salt on top. I just used regular salt, but a chunkier sea salt would probably be a bit more "chic".
Very simple. I kept this at room temperature and served it with some fish (husband had left over barbecued pork chop and chicken), sliced cucumbers, some corn cut off the cob, and little new potatoes. The flavours blended very nicely together. The mozzarella is so mild that it doesn't over power the tomato and basil. I would make this again (it's ridiculously easy) but not when tall skinny son is present for supper because he doesn't like tomatoes. (I think it is a crying shame that he doesn't know the joy of fresh picked late summer tomatoes).
What did you have for supper?
My mother used to make this. So yummy. I LOVE the tomatoes fresh out of the garden.
ReplyDeleteI had BBQ chicken (just a boneless breast with a little cumin, garlic and smoked paprika), fried and white potatoes sweet potatoes, and of course some tomatoes! Having to be really diligent about staying gluten free right now because my belly is all wonky again.
Cumin, garlic, paprika... what would life be like without spices? Now I'm thinking I want to make something with cumin in it.
DeleteOne of my all time favs Caprese Salad! I like to get the Ciliegine Mozzarella balls to make mine and the tiny Grape Tomatoes. Just talking about it now makes me hungry... nom nom... Greetings from the Arizona Desert... Dawn... The Bohemian
ReplyDeleteHi Dawn! It's so nice to have a new reader. Thanks for dropping by!
DeleteI shall try this. The way I usually do tomatoes is to cut them in slices and scatter feta cheese and black olives over them. But this would make a nice change.
ReplyDeleteMMMm sounds very Greek to me. I love feta cheese. I even crumble it with asparagus.
DeleteI love this salad! I often chunk my tomatoes, and mix everything together in a bowl, but the taste is the same! Another variation, if you want to try...slice the tomatoes and place on a baking sheet. Top with mozzarella and basil, then put under the broiler just until the cheese begins to brown. It's delicious!
ReplyDeleteThat also sounds wonderful! It's all about tomatoes at this time of year. There is no comparison to what we are stuck with from grocery stores through the winter.
DeleteCereal. My daughter loves Caprese Salad.
ReplyDeleteI had beans on toast, one of my favourite makes ever! BUT I love that salad that I call 'tomato and mozzarella salad' - I didn't even know it had a real name!!!
ReplyDeleteThe best I ever had it though was in Spain. I used beef tomatoes and they were just so much nicer than what we get here! But a tasty twist is....slivers of red onion interweaved betwixt the cheese and tomatoes. Also the longer you leave it the nicer it us. I'll iften make it in the morning for tea that night. I fact I'm now going to have to go buy some mozzarella!