No recipe plum caprese
Just in time for New Year, here’s another simple side. Because honestly, who needs complication at this time of the year. And let’s face it, most festive cooking comes down to roasting some manner of bird, or baking a ham, or throwing bits of meat and/or seafood around a barbecue. Sides that don’t require much prep, but are based on fresh produce you just cut up in the moment and turf on a platter, are perfect with your star-turn protein. It helps if they’re super-simple and look pretty on a platter and this variation on a theme of Caprese salad ticks those boxes. It virtually presents itself. This side is so simple, it isn’t really even a recipe, more an exercise in shopping and buying the chicest fruit in town. All you do is find the best, ripest, sweetest heirloom tomatoes money can buy (you should be able to smell them coming at the greengrocer) and the juiciest plums too. You want them in a roughly even ratio in the finished dish but look, if your salad skews plummier more than tomato-ey, or vice versa, it’s not a deal breaker. All you do is cut both into wedges, strew them artfully over a roomy platter with ripped bocconcini, rocket and basil leaves, liberally douse everything with EVOO and balsamic vinegar, season well (not to be w⚓s about this but only sea salt flakes and freshly cracked black pepper need apply), then… ta daa. Salad done, salad dusted and salad freaking spectacular, if we say so ourselves.
