The same combination that makes pizza so irresistible – mozzarella and tomatoes – also makes a mean salad.
And just like a classically delicious pizza, you don’t need much beyond those two star ingredients to assemble a stunning salad, known in Italy as a caprese salad.
In this case, I simply stacked slabs of tomato and fresh mozzarella, then drizzled them with a lemon vinaigrette and sprinkled them with fresh basil and lemon zest.
To add a punch of tang to the salad, I added capers to the vinaigrette, as well as a sprinkle of them over the salad just before serving. Capers are the pickled unopened flower buds of a bush that grows in the Mediterranean. The flavour is pleasantly briny and herby.
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Of course, like pizza, feel free to pile on whatever else seems tasty.
Caprese Salad With Caper Vinaigrette
Start to finish: 15 minutes
Two 250-g (8-oz) balls fresh mozzarella
2 large slicing tomatoes
Salt and ground black pepper
50 ml (1/4 cup) olive oil
Juice and zest of 1 lemon
15 ml (1 tbsp) capers, divided
Handful fresh basil leaves
Use a serrated knife to slice each ball of mozzarella into 4 slices. Repeat with tomatoes, cutting each into 4 slices.
Stack 2 slices of tomato and 2 slices of mozzarella, alternating as you stack, on each of 4 serving plates. As you stack, season each tomato slice with a pinch of salt and pepper. Set aside.
In a blender, combine olive oil, lemon juice and half of the capers. Puree until smooth. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle a bit of the dressing over each mozzarella-tomato stack. Scatter several basil leaves, a few of the remaining capers and a bit of lemon zest over each stack.
Makes 4 servings.
Nutrition information per serving (values are rounded to the nearest whole number): 460 calories; 370 calories from fat (79 per cent of total calories); 41 g fat (18 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 90 mg cholesterol; 5 g carbohydrate; 19 g protein; 1 g fibre; 370 mg sodium.
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