I love Insalata Cap­rese. What’s not to love? Toma­toes, cheese and olive oil all on the same plate. But I will say, when I order it, I am always a lit­tle bit anx­ious before it arrives. Will it be a plate of faded red toma­toes with no fla­vor? Bland olive oil? Mushy cheese? OR will it be a plate of ruby red lush­ness, suc­cu­lent olive oil and firm slightly sweet cheese? Even if the waiter highly rec­om­mends it, some­times I pass because I can’t take the stress or dis­ap­point­ment. It is widely known that I have a low stress-threshold.

Today, I will let you in on my lit­tle secret to per­fect Insalata Cap­rese every time– at home.

For those of you still won­der­ing, Insalata Cap­rese is a Neapoli­tan sum­mer salad from the Isle of Capri. It is a fan­tas­ti­cally sim­ple salad and should remain so. The 4 ingre­di­ents are: Fresh, vine-ripe, semi-firm, non-refrigerated toma­toes; fresh Buf­falo moz­zarella cheese; excel­lent qual­ity olive oil; gar­den fresh basil. Plus, coarse sea salt and fresh ground peppercorn.

Like you, I am always put off when I read such defined ele­ments of a dish. I am not a gourmet chef. I don’t  have a farm-fresh sup­plier drop­ping off locally grown pro­duce or want to take a trip to the local big-box organic mar­ket. Some­times I just want to run to Pub­lix (local food shop), and hope for the best. Luck­ily, I have found that the pop­u­lar­ity of the Food Net­work and Top Chef etc. has caused chain gro­cery stores to step up to the “plate” and start stock­ing more niche prod­ucts. So, hap­pily, I am able to find a pretty good selec­tion of ingre­di­ents. The secret is to know what to look for and what you have to make the extra effort buy­ing online or at spe­cialty shops.

First off, toma­toes can be tricky. Even in the height of the sea­son you can come up with a bland, mushy, gritty tomato. Even with all the hydro­pon­ics and inter­na­tional year-round imports, we can­not be guar­an­teed of a yummy vine-ripe tomato. Although, when you find them– they are the best!

Sec­ondly, olive oil is key to most Ital­ian dishes. This is one area that I do go out of  my way to get the best I can afford. When cook­ing with it in sauces etc., I use a good but sim­ple extra-virgin olive oil (EVOO) pur­chased from a gro­cery store. When using it in it’s pure state on a salad, bruschetta, or a dip, I put my money where my mouth is. At the moment, my favorite olive oil is from O & Co., Oleifi­cio Sociale Valdel­sano, a Tus­can vari­etal– which is not avail­able this sea­son. But alter­na­tives are 2 Sicilain vari­etals: Olis and Mon­teleone. If you have ques­tions, call one of their Olive Oil Ladies (Divas) and they will rec­om­mend some­thing to you. Don’t for­get the stain­less steel pourer!

If you can’t imag­ine olive oil really being all that dif­fer­ent, stop into a gourmet shop like William-Sonoma, they have a olive oil tast­ing bar. Just like wine, you will find that your palate is drawn to cer­tain fla­vors over oth­ers. Then go home and taste your plain EVOO, I think you will notice a difference.

Olive oil is also good for you. It is high in mono-unsaturated fat, a type of fat that researchers are find­ing has good health ben­e­fits. How many things can you name that are good and good for you? Admit­tedly, this is com­ing from a Diva that con­sid­ers chips and salsa a food group.

Thirdly, cheese please. I just like say­ing that. Cheese, oh cheese, I love cheese. The tex­tures, the tastes the smells..well, not always the smells. Insalata Cap­rese calls for Buf­falo moz­zarella, which can be found in the deli sec­tion of your store…not the cheese freezer with the yogurt.

Lastly, fresh herbs are essen­tial to tasty dishes. Don’t skimp on them. I qual­ify the fresh leaves you can buy in bags in the pro­duce sec­tion as “fresh”. Some may quib­ble and say “fresh” means picked off the basil bush in your back­yard. What­ever. My way works just fine.

After lastly, coarse salt and fresh ground pep­per. There are a lot of dif­fer­ent types of salt. Amer­i­cans are prob­a­bly most used table salt which is usu­ally pure sodium. Sea salt is made from evap­o­rated sea water. You may not be able to tell the dif­fer­ence if evap­o­rated in water, but when sprin­kled on food in it’s coarse state, sea salt pro­vides a dif­fer­ent mouth feel and taste due to the dif­fer­ent rate of dissolution.

Fresh ground pep­per­corn also offers a much dif­fer­ent and height­ened fla­vor than table “ground pepper”.

Now to the secret part… sotto sotto (shhhh…), if you read my com­ments on toma­toes care­fully, you were surely envi­sion­ing the typ­i­cal round Beef­steak tomato. A-HA!..not so fast. I have found the surest way to get a fresh ripe tomato every time is to think smaller. Just like Tiffany’s, the best things come in small pack­ages. I use grape toma­toes . They have the thicker skin and inner tex­ture of Beef­steak toma­toes, taste of Roma and not as watery as cherry toma­toes. And they are small and oblong like grapes. I will admit it is a pic­colo (tiny) vari­a­tion of the Insalata Caprese.

I also use Boc­concini. These are small rounds of Buf­falo moz­zarella. You will find them in small, whey-filled con­tain­ers in the deli sec­tion of your store. I find the size of slices much more visu­ally appeal­ing than try­ing to slice the large rounds into rectangles.

Sheesh!, who thought it would take me this long to get to the heart of my Insalata Pic­colo Caprese!

I use 2 con­tain­ers of grape toma­toes, 1 approx. 8oz. con­tainer of Boc­concini, 1 bag of basil leaves, olive oil to taste, salt/pepper to taste. The best part is that all these ingre­di­ents are avail­able all year round. These will make about 4–6 side dishes or 2–3 good size lunches. The cheese comes in pound and 1/2 pound sizes. It is FRESH cheese, so it does have a fairly quick expi­ra­tion date. About 1 week after opening.

This dish is to be made and served, not placed in refrig­er­a­tor. If you do, olive oil will sep­a­rate and con­geal– just as icky look­ing as it sounds. Harm­less, but icky.

Slice toma­toes in halves, slice cheese to desired thick­ness (a bit less than a 1/4″), slice or tear basil into small pieces– just enough to add a bit of color, a few dashes of salt and a few grinds of pep­per, driz­zle olive oil over top. More of any of these ingre­di­ents can be added after­ward. That is the beauty of most Ital­ian dishes!

I make this up for a quick lunch, antipasto, or a con­torno (side dish) for meals.  I some­times just make the toma­toes and skip the cheese. My friend Evette (who is Ital­ian) likes to skip the toma­toes (how does she call her­self Ital­ian?) and just have the cheese. Hmmm…cheese salad– not a bad idea. Add a slice of Tus­can coun­try bread, which I can also find in the bak­ery of my gro­cery store, a glass of a chilled, crisp, white wine and you have your­self a delec­table feast for the eyes and the tummy.

Kick back and enjoy La Dolce Vita! Buon Appetito!

Trivia Alert: Did you know the red of the toma­toes, the white of the cheese and the green of the basil in the Insalata Cap­rese are meant to rep­re­sent the col­ors of the Ital­ian flag? Now you do.