Hey Pesto – Brilliant and Vibrantly Simple Salad

Introduction:

This is a stunning yet simple salad that can lighten up any barbecue and guarantee to wow your guests; it’s even better if you’ve been assigned to ‘bring a salad’ and you rock up with this. The beauty is in its simplicity, if quality ingredients are used. I have made this a few times and the platter it has been served on has almost been licked clean every time.

The design of the salad began with a star ingredient, in this case pesto. Every pesto I make is slightly different, based on how I’m feeling: toasted or natural pine nuts for more or less nuttiness; varying levels of Parmesan (Reggiano) or Pecorino (if I want a lighter flavour), 1 or 2 cloves of garlic depending on whether I want a big garlicky bite or something more subtle; and more olive oil for a wetter finish or less for something more paste-like. Regardless, fresh, vibrantly green and highly floral basil is essential. If I can’t find that I don’t make pesto. Where times permit I manually grind the ingredients in a mortar and pestle. For other times I use a food processor, with great results.

Pesto has a slight acidity from the Parmesan/ Pecorino so in creating this salad I wanted to introduce more. Roll out the red carpet and royally welcome some ripe, umami rich tomatoes and a piquant raspberry vinegar. The bite and acidity is then beautifully contrasted with cucumber and a soft milky buffalo cheese or a sheep’s milk based bocconcini. And finally, the star pesto is drizzled on top.

I am not going to provide exact measurements here as there are none. Play around with the quantities of the following ingredients until you’ve hit your flavour nirvana.