May 2003

Parma ham and mozzarella salad with gazpacho dressing.

This can be used as a starter or as a summer snack. To make the dressing you need some fresh ingredients. These are onion, green and red peppers, garlic, cucumber, a little fresh chilli, chives, basil and a little cumin. These are all put into a food processor and blitzed until nearly smooth. That is basically it, but here we have added some neatly diced onion and fresh diced and skinned tomato as a garnish in the dressing. The amounts of each ingredient comes down to personnal taste with some people who lick a bit of zing adding more chilli. Some like it cooler and use more of the cucumber.

The parma ham strips need to be very crispy. Here we have used a trick we borrowed from Gary Rhodes. You put the strips of parma ham, or streaky bacon if you prefer, onto a greased metal tray. Then on top you put another greased tray, greased side down. This is put into a medium to hot oven to cook. The tray on top means that both sides of the ham cook at the same time and that it stays very flat and doesn't curl up. When it is cooked remove the upper tray and allow to cool. It should then be very crispy. Perfect.

To put the dish together is now very simple. On the base we have a basil croute. This is just a disc of puff pastry that has been brushed with fresh olive oil and basil, then baked in a medium oven until risen and crisp. On top of this is a ball of lettuce. Here we have used curly endive. Roquet leaves would be ideal but any leaf you prefer can be used. Sitting on top of the leaf is the mozzarella. This is bought as quite large balls. Instead of trying to be all neat and cutting it up, all we did was to rip the ball in half with out fingers. Then we drizzled the dressing around this all on the plate. Finally the crispy strips of bacon are gently rested on the top and a light sprinkling of finely chopped parsley is added. That's it. The dressing, by the way, is put on the plate before the ham just because it is easier not to try to do it around the ham.

This would be great in the summer in the garden with a cold glass of wine.

Enjoy.

Paul Vincent: Head Chef