This is a great take on the tricolore Italian salad. Roasting the tomatoes and using a fresh basil pesto makes the flavours that much more intense.
Serves 2
About 4 tablespoons roasted tomato purée (see below)
1–2 balls of buffalo mozzarella
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
For the basil pesto
75g basil leaves (120g bunched basil, stalks removed)
25g Parmesan or hard, mature goat’s cheese, finely grated
1 garlic clove, crushed
30g pine nuts, lightly toasted
A squeeze of lemon juice, or more to taste
Up to 100ml extra virgin olive oil
Make a half quantity of roasted tomato purée (as described here); the finished sauce needs to be fairly thick – at least the consistency of double cream. If yours is thinner, put it into a pan and simmer gently to reduce and thicken. Leave to cool. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed, then chill. (You’ll have more than you need for this dish – what’s left over will be wonderful in a sauce, soup or curry; it freezes well too.)
To make the pesto, put the basil, grated cheese, garlic and pine nuts into a food processor. Season well with salt and pepper, add a squeeze of lemon juice and blitz to a fairly fine, but still granular texture. Add the extra virgin olive oil a slosh at a time, pulsing the machine to blend it in, and stopping when you have a loose but still textured purée. Taste and add more salt, pepper and lemon juice if you think it is needed.
Spoon the chilled tomato sauce on to serving plates and add the mozzarella balls – kept whole or just roughly torn in half. Add the basil pesto and a generous grinding of black pepper. Serve straight away.