There are fabulous combinations, resulting in a delicious dish full of flavors. One of them is cheese with tomato and pesto, which can be served as an appetizer accompanied by a few slices of toasted bread or as a perfect starter. This burrata with colorful cherry tomato salad and homemade pesto is an ideal dish.
You know that in summer I like quick and uncomplicated recipes . And as you can see, this one today is the easiest and you will have it ready in the blink of an eye. You can prepare the pesto in advance (I explain how to do it in the recipe) and have it in the fridge ready to use, or even if you make a large amount you can store it in jars in the freezer, to use when you need it. You can also buy it, but it really is very simple to make and the homemade pesto has no equal .
And since what we want is a summer dish, what better way to fill it with colour! To do this, it will be enough to choose cherry tomatoes of different varieties and colors, which together with the white of the burrata and the green of the pesto, will give joy to this dish, which is perfect for any meal of the day.
Let's go with the recipe for this salad that comes with a gift, since it also includes the recipe for homemade pesto.
Ingredients
For the salad
- Fresh burrata (one ball 125-150 g)
- 150 g of cherry tomatoes of different varieties and colors
- Homemade pesto sauce*
- A few radishes (4 or 5)
- Some fresh basil leaves
*For the homemade pesto sauce
- 50g basil
- 1 clove garlic
- 30 g grated Parmesan cheese
- 30g of pine nuts
- 175 ml of extra virgin olive oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Elaboration
- Peel the garlic and put it in a manual mincer (either a manual wind-up mincer, like Tefal's Ingenio or an electric one, like the WMF mincer ) and mince for about 5 seconds.
- Add the basil and garlic in the chopper and grind for 3 more seconds.
- Place the rest of the ingredients in the chopper and mix them for about 10 seconds. Reserve the sauce. (For a slightly more intense sauce, toast the pine nuts first, you will see more detail in Notes).
- Wash and cut the radishes into thin slices. Wash and cut the largest cherry tomatoes in half or quarters.
- On a pretty tray (like the Revol porcelain one ) or a wide plate, place the sliced radishes, so that they are distributed.
- Arrange the whole and diced cherry tomatoes on top of the radish slices.
- Place the burrata on the tray, over the tomatoes, and cut it a little so that it is slightly open.
- Put some basil leaves on top (if they are very large, chop them).
- Using a spoon, spread the pesto sauce generously over the salad.
- Serve as is or accompanied by a good homemade bread, or a few slices of toasted bread*.
Grades- The pesto sauce is traditionally made with raw pine nuts, that is, fresh and not roasted. Raw pine nuts give the sauce a smoother, more delicate flavor. However, some people prefer to use toasted pine nuts to give their pesto sauce a deeper, more toasty flavor. If this is your case and to do this, you only have to heat the oven to 200 °C and toast the pine nuts on a tray for 10 minutes until they are golden brown and let them cool, or you can also toast them in a frying pan, stirring constantly.
- You can accompany the salad, in addition to freshly made bread, with some toast (with the pesto, the cherries and the burrata you can make delicious sandwiches for each bite). Or even some garlic bread toast. Making them is very simple:
- Cut a loaf of bread into slices about 2 cm thick.
- Arrange them on a tray and take them to the oven, previously heated to 200 °C (you can make them while toasting the pine nuts for the pesto).
- Let them toast for 10 minutes and turn them over. Let them toast 10 more minutes or until you see that they are golden.
- Take them out of the oven and when they are no longer burning, rub a garlic clove over each slice. Add a jet of EVOO and you already have them ready to accompany the salad.
- You can use any salad tomato, the variety that you like best. With the cherries of different colors, the salad has a very lively and cheerful color that "makes" it very summery.
- Also, if you prefer, you can change the burrata for mozzarella or for a fresh cheese that you like (feta, burgos, killed or any tender cut into cubes is a very good alternative).
- If you have leftover pesto, you can safely store it in the fridge or freezer in an airtight container, such as Luigi Bormioli's jars .
- Whether you serve it as an appetizer to share, as a first course, or as an accompaniment to meat or fish, it is a fabulous salad that you will surely distribute more than once.
