Recipe: Funghi Caprese (Caprese Mushrooms)

To have a little fun the other night, I took some little mozzarella bocconcini and capped them off with some of my heirloom tomatoes to make little mushrooms. The tomatoes are yellow Olivette (egg shaped), Fuzzy Peach (a pale yellow tomato that actually has peach fuzz) and a Burgundy Roma. 

I took the bocconcini and sliced off a bit of the bottom (Lucas had the pieces) so they'd stand up. Then I slided the tomatoes in half (or a bit less) and cut out the middle membrane so they would "seat" on top of the bocconcini.  I carefully placed them on fresh basil leaves from the garden and made a little stream of aged balsamic (from Pienza in Tuscany) running through the middle. A sprinkle of oregano represented the forest floor and some course sea salt sprnkled over the top of the tomatoes made them look a bit spotted. 

My favorite way to eat these is simply dig into the whole mushroom then mop up some of the balsamic... then pop the whole thing right in my mouth..... When tasting something exceptional, my father used to pinch his fingers together, hold them up to the corner of his mouth, and while twisting his fingers let out a little kiss. Molto bouno!

Enjoy.


--Jerry Finzi