Recipes

Name: Caprese Tomato Towers
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 24 slices of Roma tomatoes, (from the midsection of about 6 tomatoes, stem and bottom ends set aside); 24 slices of fresh mozzarella cheese, (pre-sliced is great); 6 more slices fresh mozzarella cheese; Coarse sea salt, (Sel Gris, or Himalayan salt, etc.); Freshly ground pepper; ½ cups small basil leaves; 3 tbsp. fresh chives, sliced very thin; ¼ cup good extra virgin olive oil; ½ lemon; 6 small blue flowers, such as borage or rosemary, if available

Caprese Tomato Towers

Course

Appetizer

Cuisine

Italian

Pairs With

Sonoma Coast Rosé

Ingredients

Ingredients 1

24 slices of Roma tomatoes, (from the midsection of about 6 tomatoes, stem and bottom ends set aside)

24 slices of fresh mozzarella cheese, (pre-sliced is great)

6 more slices fresh mozzarella cheese

Coarse sea salt, (Sel Gris, or Himalayan salt, etc.)

Freshly ground pepper

½ cups small basil leaves

3 tbsp. fresh chives, sliced very thin

¼ cup good extra virgin olive oil

½ lemon

6 small blue flowers, such as borage or rosemary, if available

Instructions

STEP 1:

Measure the diameter of the tomato slices (Roma tomatoess are usually about 1 ½-inches across), then get out a biscuit cutter the same size. (or, as close as possible) Now use the biscuit cutter to cut circles from the sliced mozzarella. Set aside the extra bits of cheese after cutting the circles, they can be used as a snack or a salad another time.
STEP 2:

Next, place a circle of cheese onto the center of 6 small serving plates. Top the cheese circles with slices of tomatoes. Then repeat the steps until all the plates have little “towers” of cheese and tomatoes. The last layer should be a tomato slice.
STEP 3:

Now use a small star-shaped cookie cutter (about an inch across) to cut small stars out of the 6 remaining slices of mozzarella cheese. Set the extra bits of cheese aside with the other bits. Top each tomato tower with a star.
STEP 4:

Sprinkle sea salt over each plate, followed by a good grinding of fresh pepper. Now use the basil leaves in a decorative manner on each of the 6 plates. Sprinkle each tower with some of the chives and then drizzle each with olive oil and then squeeze a few drops of lemon juice over each tower.
STEP 5:

Serve the tomato towers right away with fresh crusty bread, salad greens or as is. Makes 6 tomato towers.

Notes

Cook’s Note: This is a very flexible, simple dish and can be done with larger or even smaller tomatoes. You can use tomatoes of different colors, too. Look for fresh mozzarella that is pre-sliced. And, to slice the Roma tomatoes nicely, try a small serrated knife. For holidays like the 4th of July, pretty little plates with red, white or blue colors look very nice. This fun recipe would also be nice to make with young cooks since there is no “real” cooking involved. If you have your own tomatoes the dish is just that much better!