Buffalo Mozzarella with Tomato & Parmesan Crust Salad

This is a fresh summer salad. it uses flavours that love being together in tomato, basil and mozzarella cheese. The crunch of the Parmesan breadcrumbs contrasts fantastically Basil and Parsley pesto works really well.

Serves 2/3

INGREDIENTS:

for the Tomato and Basil Parmesan Crust:

20 vine ripened tomato's
Handful of basil leaves
Couple of slices of thick crusty bread
Parmesan cheese
Olive Oil
Sea Salt & Ground pepper

For the Buffalo Mozzarella salad:

Good Quality Buffalo Mozzarella x 2 large balls
Handful of Basil leaves
Handful of Parsley
Olive oil
Parmesan cheese
SSa Salt 
Ground Pepper

Parma Ham
Italian Salami

 

WHAT TO DO:

Remove the tomato's middle  and chop the tomatoes into cubes and lay on the bottom of an oven proof dish, rip the basil leaves and scatter across the tomato's and salt and pepper.

Take the bread an put in a blender and blitz into breadcrumbs, leave a varied of different sizes of breadcrumbs as this adds texture ( do not blitz into fine breadcrumbs)

Scatter the bread crumbs over the tomatoes ( make sure every part of the dish is covered ) then take the Parmesan cheese and grate generously over the breadcrumbs (cover the whole dish) then drizzle some olive oil over the dish.

Place under a grill until browned

For the Buffalo Mozzarella salad:

In the blender put the basil and parsley and a good glug of olive oil. blitz the ingredients together, add some grated Parmesan and add seasoning to your taste.

Tear the mozzarella and place on a dish, drizzle the basil and parsley pesto on top. place the meats in between the cheese.

Serve together and add some crusty bread and olive oil and balsamic vinegar to dip

Recipie by Nigel Slater

Photos by Rach Grice

Pesto Chicken with Sundried Tomatoes and Toasted Pine Nuts

This is a quick and easy meal, but tastes fantastic. Put it with some good pasta and some garlic flatbread...sorted!

You can get all chefy and make your own pesto (I will do this and show you how). But using a good pesto in a jar, this meal takes 10/15 minutes, perfect if you haven't got lots of time to cook. This for me is a fresh tasting dish and has great variety of textures from the soft chicken to the crunch of the toasted pine nuts to the juicy sundried tomatoes.

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

A Jar Of Good Quality Pesto

Two Breasts of Chicken (from a quality Butcher)

50g Pine Nuts

300g Good Quality Pasta (I use: Tesco Finest Pennoni Rigati)

Sundried Tomatoes

Hand Full of Fresh Basil Leaves

Extra Virgin Olive Oil


WHAT TO DO:

In pan bring to the boil a pan of water and cook the pasta,

HANDY TIP:

Put some olive oil and salt in the water when cooking the pasta (the oil stops the pasta sticking to each other and the pan and the salt flavours the pasta while cooking). You want a slight bite to the pasta...nothing worse then sloppy mushy pasta!

Heat your frying pan on a medium heat and add a splash of oil. Cut your chicken into strips and then half (use chunky bits of chicken as you want that succulent texture, don't cut them to thinly) and brown in the pan for around 10 minutes... REMEMBER: chicken should not be pink in the middle! When the chicken is nearly browned, add the pine nuts for a couple of minutes to lightly toast them (the colour changes only slightly, be carefull not to burn).

HANDY TIP:

I'm not trying to teach you to suck eggs! but the reason for browning the meat (any meat) is that you keep the moisture inside, less chance of the meat going dry.

Once the meat is browned spoon 2 tbs of the pesto into the pan, stir in, then add some freshly torn basil leaves and 8 chopped Sundried tomatoes (again don't cut them to thinly as you want the juicy texture, halves or thirds will be perfect).

Once all components are done, drain the pasta and tip into the sauce (the Italians always mix the sauce in with the pasta, its only us Brits that have sauce on top of the pasta) and serve.

Serve with garlic flatbread...told you it was simple and easy!

Recipe by Matt Grice

Photo taken by Rach Grice