The Reinvention of Caprese

Caprese 'Antipasto'

  • Servings: 15 pieces
  • Difficulty: Easy
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A pleasantly mild Italian appetizer that's quick and easy to put together but still manages to be classy.


Ingredients

  • 1 block mozzarella fresca – using fresh mozzarella keeps the dish mild and light; don’t use blocks of aged/pizza-style mozzarella
  • 3 large or 4 small Roma tomatoes
  • Fresh basil leaves
  • Olive oil
  • Coarse sea salt
  • Optional: Fresh Italian parsley
  • Optional: Castelvetrano olives

Directions

  1. If the mozzarella is not already cut into slices, slice into 1/4-inch discs. This recipe assumes that you end up with a total of 15 slices.
  2. Cut tomatoes into similarly-sized discs, discarding (or eating) the areas nearest and farthest from the stem. I find that a small Roma tomato typically makes 4 good slices and a larger one makes 5.
  3. Stack in order the mozzarella fresca slices, tomato slices, and basil leaves on the serving dish. For a different presentation, instead alternate mozzarella and tomato slices around the edge of the dish and sprinkle roughly chopped basil over the top.
  4. Drizzle olive oil lightly over the serving dish, making sure to get oil onto each stack without completely covering any.
  5. Add either or both optional ingredients (Italian parsley and/or olives) if desired.
  6. Sprinkle salt to taste, then serve immediately.

Once upon a time I discovered antipasto for the first time. I was inspired! A combination of flavors and textures iconic of Italian snacking, with every part ritzy enough for my pointlessly expensive tastes! What could be better!

I’d had what I now recognize as antipasto plenty of times, but I’d never approached it thoughtfully before. Parmesan, dry sopressata, prosciutto, olives – not the ordinary Manzanillas I’ve had a million times before but Castelvetrano! – simply amazing for something I expected to be a bland snack. Now, it was at this point I started looking at Wikipedia for information about antipasto so that I could play around with the dish for myself.

And then I thought, what about other iconic ingredients applied in the same way? I like adapting concepts as a general practice, and that preference comes greatly in handy when cooking. So I started thinking about maybe soft cheese instead of hard, or adding fresh herbs, or in general using ingredients that are traditionally Italian but not traditionally part of antipasti.

Here’s what I came up with:

Mozzarella, Roma tomatoes, Castelvetrano olives, and shredded basil and Italian parsley leaves, drizzled in olive oil and sprinkled with coarse-grain sea salt.

I was so proud of my idea! It was quintessentially Italian but wasn’t anything I’d seen before or found in my searches for antipasto recipes. And it was good! The salt and oil set off the mozzarella wonderfully, the basil and parsley gave the whole thing a lovely savory-minty sweetness, and the tomatoes filled out the profile neatly, with the olives providing an occasional shock of intense flavor to mix up the experience. It flowed together smoothly and in general did exactly what I hoped.

…And then I served it to my spouse, who immediately said, “Oh, you made caprese!”

“…What’s caprese?”

After a brief argument about whether caprese is real, and with egg firmly on my face I discovered that I’d “invented” a longstanding traditional Italian dish consisting of mozzarella fresca, Roma tomatoes, fresh basil leaves, olive oil, and salt. I still like to serve this dish with Castelvetrano olives and Italian parsley out of a misguided commitment to my fake-antipasto idea, but that’s a long way from the essence of the traditional dish and it tastes good either way.

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