Heirloom Caprese Salad

Mid-July and the full Boston summer has arrived with its customary lack of mercy. The heat index reached ninety-four on Tuesday, and the apartment — which does not have central air — has a specific personality in summer that is different from its winter personality, which is also specific. In summer the apartment is something you tolerate with ceiling fans and cold beverages and the knowledge that it will be the right temperature again in October.

We went to the Cape for the weekend — Sean D.'s idea, the correct idea. We borrowed his friend Marcus's family's house in Wellfleet for two nights, which involved sleeping in the actual cool air of an August night on the outer Cape, which is worth approximately any price you have to pay for it. We ate fried clams at a shack on Route 6 that had a line out the door and plastic baskets and clam strips with the exact right amount of crunch. Sean D. had a lobster roll — the Connecticut version, warm with butter, which is the superior version and I say this as a Boston person who is supposed to prefer the cold Mayo version. He gave me half. We ate on a picnic table overlooking the water and I thought: this is what summer should be. This exact thing.

Back home I reproduced the fried clams to the best of my ability, which is not possible to fully reproduce without a deep fryer and the ocean breeze and the plastic basket, but the attempt is always worth making. I found a recipe that uses buttermilk and cornmeal for the coating and the result was not the Wellfleet shack but was something excellent in its own right. Sean D. ate them out of a paper towel on the kitchen counter while I was still frying the last batch and said, "This is better than the shack." He is a good husband. He is also absolutely lying. But the clams were good.

The clams were the whole project that evening, but on the way back from Wellfleet we’d stopped at a farm stand on Route 6 and I came home with a paper bag of heirloom tomatoes in four colors that I could not leave behind. While Sean D. ate the last of the fried clams standing over the stove, I sliced those tomatoes into this caprese — no cooking, barely any effort, just the best tomatoes of the year doing exactly what they’re supposed to do in mid-July. It ended up being the right second act for the whole meal: loud and crunchy followed by quiet and ripe, which is honestly a pretty good description of a summer weekend on the Cape.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 0 minutes | Total Time: 10 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 lbs heirloom tomatoes, mixed colors, sliced 1/4-inch thick
8 oz fresh mozzarella, sliced 1/4-inch thick
1/3 cup fresh basil leaves, large leaves torn
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon balsamic glaze
1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Slice the tomatoes. Cut heirloom tomatoes into 1/4-inch rounds. If using smaller varieties like cherry or grape tomatoes, halve them instead.
Arrange the salad. On a large serving platter, alternate overlapping slices of tomato and fresh mozzarella in a single layer. Tuck basil leaves between the slices as you go.
Dress and season. Drizzle the olive oil evenly over the platter, followed by the balsamic glaze. Season generously with flaky sea salt and black pepper.
Rest briefly and serve. Let the salad sit at room temperature for 5 minutes before serving so the tomatoes release a little of their juice. Serve immediately — this does not keep.

Nutrition (per serving)

Heirloom Caprese Salad — The Other Thing I Made When I Got Home from the Cape