Very simple to make, we’re salivating over the caprese salad, 100% approved by Italians in the summer, the recipe for which is by food columnist François-Régis Gaudry.
It’s summer and the classic tomato mozzarella salad is starting to bore you a little, and at the same time you don’t feel like a pasta dish in this heat. You’re salivating at the idea of a summer pasta salad like the Italians know how to make so well! That’s good, François-Régis Gaudry, well known to the general public as a food critic on Top Chef’s La Brigade Cachée, has found a hybrid recipe between these two dishes: caprese salad, which mixes tomato, basil, mozzarella with hot pasta. He reveals the secrets of this recipe that an Italian friend suggested to him, in the colors of the Italian flag, green, white and red! Pronti?
To prepare this Italian pasta salad designed for about 4 people, you will need a ripe, quality beefsteak tomato, 250 grams of cherry tomatoes, 250 grams of Fior di Latte mozzarella, 500 grams of pasta (any pasta you like, although François-Régis Gaudry chose rigatoni for this recipe), a few leaves of good fresh basil, olive oil, salt and pepper. Do you have everything on hand? Below are the steps to follow carefully:
- Roughly chop the cherry tomatoes into small pieces. Also cut the ripe tomato into small cubes. Pour everything into a salad bowl.
- Cut the mozzarella into squares and pour these cubes into the bowl as well. Finely chop a few basil leaves and pour into the bowl. Season everything with a pinch of salt and pepper and 10 tablespoons of olive oil. Mix everything well.
- Leave to macerate in its juice for at least half an hour at room temperature.
- A few minutes before the end of this resting time, cook your pasta and at the last minute plunge the very hot pasta, barely drained, into the salad bowl. Mix well so that the well-cooked dough melts the mozzarella and softens the tomatoes. It’s ready!
There you have it, you know all the secrets of the recipe for the real caprese salad as the Italians make it. “This summer you will love this pasta that blows hot and cold!” concludes François-Régis Gaudry in his video presentation of the recipe. Buon appetito!