Fresh mozzarella. Juicy tomato. Cracked black pepper.
… Smoked olive oil.
Sound good?
IT IS.
Like my last caprese recipe, this post is more about sharing an idea and some photos than a detailed recipe. It’s so simple.
Although I totally put into a recipe card at the bottom of the post. That way Google will know it’s a recipe. But you? You know what to do, so you can just hang out for a while and look at some photos.
I often find that buying posh ingredients can get you out of doing actual work to impress your dinner party guests, and this is a great example. The smoked olive oil gives this classic salad a whole new layer of interest, drizzling a savory, smokey depth on top of the sweetness and juiciness of the mozzarella and tomato. But with no additional effort on your part to prepare it.
Obviously there’s a catch because you probably don’t have any smoked olive oil. But. You should get some. Seriously, it’s good stuff. I use it to make mayonnaise, I drizzle it on hummus, and now I drizzle it on caprese salads too. So versatile.
I use maple smoked olive oil from the Artisan Smokehouse. You can also buy some yummy looking smoked olive oils on Amazon UK and Amazon US. So, go to town folks.
But hey. I don’t want to be a random gourmet food pusher. So feel free to go make a normal caprese salad with normal extra virgin olive oil drizzled on top. Also yummy.
I am putting a LOT of photos in this post. Want to know why? Well, I finally started to experiment with my SLR’s manual settings. I mean, finally.
It’s only been two years since I bought that camera.
An improvement, no? I don’t like self promotion (says the food blogger), but I am kind of proud of these 🙂 I mean, they aren’t perfect, but I think they are some of my best so far.
So- if you love these photos too, I would be ridiculously happy if you added them to Pinterest and helped more people to discover my lil’ blog. Speaking of which- are you following me there? I’d love it if you did, but more importantly, if you like vegetarian recipes, you will like following me! Cuz that is what I’m all about!
So- maybe see you there- and in the meantime let’s assemble a salad!
caprese salad with smoked olive oil
Ingredients
- 1 ball of fresh mozzarella, about 125g / 4.4oz
- 1 large juicy and ripe tomato
- Appx 1 Tblsp of smoked olive oil
- Cracked black pepper, to taste
- 5-10 basil leaves
Instructions
- Slice both your mozzarella and tomato into thick slices.
- Assemble in overlapping layers on a plate.
- Grind some black pepper over the top.
- Drizzle with smoked olive oil.
- Garnish with basil leaves.
Sometimes I can’t decide on one look and feel for my text overlay pictures. This was one of those times. So… have another one! And may the best image win!
This is just a big tower of delicious! I came running to this post when I saw ‘smoked olive oil’ in the title, I’ve never heard of such a thing! It sounds amazing. : )
It is sooooo addictive! One day I found myself on the website for a smoked foods company and I basically ordered one of everything that wasn’t meat. LOL. I used to order shoes and cute jewelry with my spare cash. Now it’s random olive oils?!