Best Summertime Salad: Caprese

As promised, here is the how-to for the perfect Caprese Salad.

Please don’t be deterred by the length of this recipe, it is truly easy to make.

Caprese Salad with Ovoline

A few things to keep in mind:

• Seasonality: Like most foods, this salad is only fantastic when the ingredients are at their best–in season and locally sourced.
• Quality: With a salad like this in which the flavors aren’t influenced by anything particularly strong, you need to use the best ingredients you can get.
• Simplicity: This isn’t a fancy salad, so don’t embellish–but I am not one to squelch creativity, so try it out if you feel you must.

Ingredients:

Tomato: We prefer heirlooms for their superior quality and interesting quirks, but just get good, ripe ones. We like those huge ones, and we also like the small Sun Gold or Cherry varieties.

Fresh Mozzarella: This is the cheese that comes in a milky liquid. Traditionally called Bufala (Buffalo) Mozzarella, most of what we can get in the USA is not that. True Bufala Mozzarella is made of buffalo milk. We generally get cow milk mozzarella in the states, so technically it should be called Fresh Mozzarella.

Get the size/shape that matches your tomatoes. The big egg-sized pieces, called Ovoline, go with the big tomatoes. To pair with the cherry tomatoes, try Perle, or Ciliegine, or Bocconcini.

Fresh Basil: That dried stuff will NOT suffice. If you can’t get fresh basil, don’t even bother making this salad. By the way, basil is one of the easiest herbs to grow in your backyard or windowsill garden.

Olive Oil: You will really taste the olive oil in this salad so use a quality one; our very favorite is from Napa Valley Olive Oil Manufacturing Company.

Balsamic vinegar: While I’ve learned that other caprese recipes don’t call for vinegar, we like the tang and look of it in our salad.

Salt & Pepper: Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper are mandatory.

Directions:

1. Remove any tomato stems. Wash and lightly pat dry the tomatoes. If you’re using the large tomatoes, use a tomato shark or a sharp knife to remove the top of the core. Cut into slices about 1/3 inch thick. If using the small tomatoes, leave whole.
2. Remove the cheese from the liquid and use a paper towel to lightly drain. Like the tomato, cut into slices about 1/3 inch thick. Leave the small mozzarella balls whole. The whole idea is to roughly match the size and shape of the tomato and the cheese.
3. Rinse and pat dry the basil. Stack the leaves on top of each other until you have a little pile. Roll the pile into a cylinder. Hold the cylinder closed while slicing cross-wise (aka chiffonade). Fluff the pile and volià–beautiful ribbons of basil.
4. Arrange the tomatoes on your serving platter. Use a dish that is flat, but with a lip so your dressing won’t spill out. We like to alternate different colored tomatoes.
5. At regular intervals, tuck the cheese slices in between the tomatoes.
6. Sprinkle your basil ribbons over the tomatoes and cheese.
7. Season with salt and pepper.
8. Drizzle with olive oil.
9. Drizzle lightly with balsamic vinegar.
10. Add more salt and pepper to taste.
11. If doing the small tomato/small mozzarella ball version (pictured below), just put all the ingredients in a bowl and toss gently.

Caprese Salad with Bocconcini

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