Insalata Caprese - tomato, basil and mozzarella salad

Recently, I have fallen in love with Italian food (thanks to my favourite chef Gorgio Locatelli) and have almost cooked more Italian food than Chinese food! This salad, in my humble opinion, symbolises Italian food - simple ingredients simply prepared/cooked to let the quality of the ingredients shine through the dish. When you come to think of it, the colours of this salad actually resemble colours of the Italian flag!

Since the greatness of this dish depends on how good the ingredients you can get, I would suggest you buy the best possible ingredients you can source. For extra virgin olive oil, I used a Liguria DOP extra virgin olive oil. For balsamic vinegar, I heeded Locatelli's suggestion and looked up the description and list of ingredients on all the vinegar bottles to search for words 'must of grape' and 'aged in wooden barrels' and avoid words like 'caramel' or 'flavourings'. In the end, I bought one which also happened to be the most expensive one in the local Tesco (about £10). A vinegar that costed £10 is admittedly costly, but a little goes a long way. For tomatoes, I bought British Vittoria cherry tomatoes (on the vine) which has an intensely sweet flavour. I took them out of the fridge for 1 hour to get the chill off them and even put them under the sun for half an hour, which according to Nigella Lawson the Domestic Goddess, makes the tomatoes taste more tomatoey.

Serves 1 greedy person or 2 not-so-greedy ppl with substantial main course to follow

Ingredients:

1. About 12 cherry tomatoes
2. 1/2 ball of mozzarella (about 60g)
3. About 15 young basil leaves
4. Extra virgin olive oil
5. Balsamic vinegar
6. Salt
7. Black pepper

Method:

• Cut the cherry tomatoes into halves and tear the mozzarella into smallish pieces.
• Arrange basil leaves, mozzarella and tomatoes on a plate and drizzle with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and season with salt and freshly grinded black pepper. Serve immediately.