Following in my basil series is this recipe that we have made a handful of times in the past few months. It is found on many a restaurant menu as either an appetizer in a neatly arranged presentation or as a similar salad. This perennial favorite takes on an easy and quick preparation as a marinated salad with fresh grown heirloom tomatoes and fresh basil both harvested from our front garden. With the addition of some sliced mozzarella string cheese, this salad is marinated with just enough balsamic vinaigrette dressing to coat the tomatoes, basil and cheese.
Ingredient quantities vary depending on the number of ripe tomatoes ready from the garden, but this particular batch was made with 4 of our heirloom tomatoes, a large handful of fresh basil which was cut into a chiffonade and about 4 ounces of the string cheese sliced into rounds. All this was tossed with about ¾ cup of balsamic vinaigrette dressing with some salt and fresh cracked black pepper to taste.
A chiffonade is a culinary procedure for preparing leafy greens such as spinach, mint or in this case with basil where it is cut into long and thin strips. The leaves are stacked together and then rolled tightly into a cigar or tube shape, then thinly cut across the top with a sharp knife and resulting in the long thin ribbons. The word “chiffon” is French for “rag” which refers to fabric-like strips that result from this cutting method.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Jessie // Aug 12, 2009 at 10:18 am
delicious! I love a simple salad, that is the way to go!
2 Scandalous Candice // Aug 12, 2009 at 10:35 am
This is the perfect salad to pair with Pilsners. When talking about or teaching people how to pair beer and food simple ingredients and simple flavors like this can be really enhanced by beer. Try a Czechvar with this one time and you will see how simple and amazing a beer pairing is.
3 SippitySup // Aug 12, 2009 at 12:45 pm
The flavors of summer in a salad. Beautiful! GREG
4 Jen @ MaplenCornbread // Aug 12, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Such a classic but lovely salad, I can never get enough of this!
5 Cookin' Canuck // Aug 13, 2009 at 9:28 am
This is a lovely classic salad that epitomizes summer for me!
6 thepinkpeppercorn // Aug 13, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Absolutely lovely!
7 HoneyB // Aug 17, 2009 at 7:21 am
delicious!
8 The Hungry Mouse // Aug 26, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Oh, such a classic! Love it.
+Jessie