A touch of Caprice

The order for lunch today, was caprice. My ingredients:

1. 3 buffalo tomatoes
2. 2 round blobs of mozarella cheese
3. A cluster of basil leaves with stalks (already removed in the above photo)
4. Black pepper
5. Olive oil
6. Balsamic vinegar

Now I have no recipe for caprice to go by, but since I’ve seen and eaten lots of it at different restaurants all over the world, it was instinctive.

I washed the basil, towel-dried it so the leaves wouldn’t stick to my knife and hands, and sliced off the stalks. (An annoying little fruit fly started hovering around the basil at this point, probably because of the scent given off by cut leaves. Shoo!)

Then I sliced the tomatoes laterally, removing the stalks. It was a shame to throw away the top and base of each tomato, when the parts around the core were actually edible. So I put them aside.

I arranged 4 slices of tomatoes on each plate, then put some basil leaves on top of each tomato. If the leaves were too big or curled up, I’d tear or cut them up.

Next, I sliced the cheese. This was tricky as it gets more wobbly as you cut more of it away. (Oops. Okay, that accidental sliver goes onto my plate. Oh what the heck, I’ll eat it now. Mm.)

I put the cheese on top of the basil which was on top of the tomatoes. Then I chopped up most of the remaining leaves and used them as garnishing.

Suddenly, it occured to me that the ‘reject’ tomato slices could be diced up with basil leaves, and marinated in vinagrette. I did so, then put the diced tomatoes in the centre of each plate. Voila!

And this was how it looked like (with pepper seasoning and olive oil drizzled on it). Bon Apetit!