Bruschetta

Pronounced broo-shet-ta, not broo-scat-ta or any other way, this one's easy peasy and makes a great side served on thick toasted slices of crusty bread, as prepared in the previous post.

What you need:
tomatoes
fresh basil (or dried if you can't get'em fresh)
black kalamatta olives
baby bocconcini (bok-on-chee-nee, yes, will explain what this is soon)
olive oil
salt
pepper
squeeze of lemon juice


Ok. First off, baby bocconcini is NOT a baby animal of ANY kind. It's a type of cheese. Soft and chewy, does not melt well like mozarella does. Light in flavour, not pungent like parmesan. Comes in round snowman looking like balls (really...not joking), can be found in the dairy section. Also, fresh herbs (basil, thyme etc) are more flavourful and gives a bigger hit when eaten compared to the dried version, hence just a bit will suffice. Feel free to use more if using the dried version.

Method of destruction:
1) Dice your tomatoes. Make sure they are not too ripe such that they are too soft. I usually scoop the seeds out so that the final mixture is not too wet and mushy.

2) Chop up your olives. Olives have a pungent, salty flavour. Might take some getting used to so you might want to just use a little to try out in the beginning.

3) You can either rip you basil leaves (use leaves only, not stems) or roll a bunch of leaves together and slice with a sharp knife. Depends on how much flavour you want in one bite and how you want the dish to look.

4) Mix these three ingredients in a bowl and drizzle generously with olive oil and add a squeeze of lemon juice. You'd be glad to know that lemon juice concentrate can be bought in little bottles (at least in Perth and Singapore) so you don't have to waste one whole lemon. Then again, you can make lemonade with the remaining juice. Or clean your kettle.

5) Add salt and pepper to taste

6) Spoon generous amounts of the tomato mix on top of the toasted bread

7) Top with slices of baby bocconcini.

Dig in!!