I can never get enough of the summer produce. Summer bounty gets me very excited and I am always looking forward to creating different recipes using the beautiful fruits and vegetables at the market. Although I have been extremely busy this summer with various other things going on, as life happens, we are lucky that in the bay area, the summer produce continues into the fall (into October!) My favorite market items at the moment are stone fruits like peaches, and nectarines and tomatoes in all their glory, such as cherry tomatoes, heirlooms, sun gold tomatoes, green tomatoes etc! I love eating them as is, simply with a balsamic glaze drizzle, salt and pepper or jazzed up in a tomato tart, or of course with some gorgeous burrata or fresh mozzarella as they are proudly the cheese of the summer!
So of course when BelGioioso and The Feedfeed approached me to create a new recipe, using their Fresh Mozzarella and Burrata, I was ecstatic! I get to use my favorite summer produce, along with some delicious fresh cheese, in a fun, easy, summer inspired dish! BelGioioso is the real deal because in 1979, Errico Auricchio, along with his wife and 4 children moved to the States from Italy to carry on the tradition of his great-grandfather’s cheese-making and together they set out to craft the best Italian cheeses in America. BelGioioso’s commitment to tradition and excellence carries with it the value of knowing how to make Italian cheeses just as they were long ago from recipes passed down by generations. As the company has grown, the passion for tradition and quality has never diminished. I have actually been using their Fresh Mozzarella and Burrata for a long time, and they are so rich, creamy, luxurious and flavorful! One very important piece of information about their cheese is that it is rBST free, and it is vegetarian, meaning rennet free, no animal products used to make this cheese. This is important to me, being vegetarian.
So as you can imagine, I was really thrilled to create this recipe, using their creamy Burrata, to bring to you a beautiful, fun, summer dish that tantalizes the palate with all the senses : salty, creamy, sweet, spicy, sour. It is a very flavorful tomato confit, around the ultra creamy burrata, along with sweet, juicy peaches and fragrant basil, and a rosemary-thyme-garlic focaccia helps to soak up all the flavors to bring all the elements together. The tomato confit is made with beautiful heirloom cherry tomatoes that I got from the farmer’s market, garlic cloves, Calabrian chilies to give that spicy kick, fresh rosemary and lemon thyme from my garden, along with salt and freshly ground black pepper. The tomato confit goes into the oven for about 35 minutes, till the tomatoes blister and brown ever so slightly and then you let it cool.
Next for the focaccia, I use all purpose flour and whole wheat flour in the recipe, along with active dry yeast for the rise. When you want to activate the yeast, you put it into warm water. You have to make sure that the water temperature is no more than 110 degrees F, else it will kill the yeast rather than activating it! Once the focaccia dough is ready to assemble, I drench it with olive oil, fresh rosemary and lemon thyme, and fresh garlic slivers, along with maldon salt and freshly ground black pepper. The fragrance from the focaccia is so enticing, when it is fresh out of the oven! I simply slice the focaccia into rectangular slices, top it with the fresh burrata, along with the tomatoes and olive oil of the confit, add a couple of peach slices, with torn basil leaves, more maldon salt and pepper. Now take that first bite, and feel all of the senses in your mouth and you will know what I am talking about! This dish is so flavorful and divine. The creamy milky Burrata, along with the blistered tomatoes, and olive oil flavored with spicy chilies, pungent garlic and fresh herbs, the sweet and sourness from the peaches, along with the fresh basil, on the delicious focaccia is simply a MUST make in the summer!
Please do take a moment to try out this recipe, and I know it will be a hit at any gathering or summer party! The tomato confit can be made a few days in advance, the focaccia can be made a day in advance too, and this dish is portable as well!
Enjoy the rest of your summer friends!
XO
Amisha
This post is sponsored by Feedfeed, all the opinions expressed are my own.
Ingredients
- Tomato Confit:
- Ingredients:
- 1 pint of heirloom cherry tomatoes, washed and dried
- 1 cup good olive oil
- 5 garlic cloves
- 3-4 calibrian chilies
- 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary
- 4-5 sprigs of fresh lemon thyme
- 1 ½ teaspoons freshly cracked black pepper
- 1 ½ - 2 teaspoons maldon salt
- Rosemary-Lemon Thyme-Garlic Focaccia :
- Ingredients:
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 3 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 envelope active dry yeast
- 1 3/4 cups warm water(at 110 degrees F – NO MORE than this temp)
- 3 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons good olive oil
- 1/2 - 3/4 cup good olive oil
- Garnish for the focaccia:
- 3-4 sprigs of rosemary, remove them off the stem and coarsely chop
- 5-6 sprigs of lemon thyme, remove the leaves off the stem
- 4-5 garlic cloves thinly sliced into slivers.
- 4 tsp maldon salt
- Other ingredients:
- 3 peaches cut into thin slices
- About a dozen or more of basil leaves
- Equipment:
- 2 9x13 inch jelly roll pan or 1 10x15 cookie pan
Instructions
- Tomato Confit:
- Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees. In a 9 inch pie pan, or cake pan, or a square pan, add the all the ingredients and gently mix with a rubber spatula. Make sure all the herbs and tomatoes are coated with the olive oil so that it does not burn in the oven.
- Put the pan in the oven for 35 minutes. You will see the olive oil bubbling away. Gently remove it from the oven and let it cool completely.
- Rosemary-Lemon Thyme-Garlic Focaccia:
- Dissolve the yeast in the warm water in a medium bowl. Wait 10 minutes for the mixture to foam up.
- In the bowl of a stand up mixer, with a paddle attachment, mix the flours and salt to combine. Add the yeast mixture and 2 tablespoons of the olive oil and mix until a rough ball of dough forms, about 1 minute. Remove from the dough from food processor.
- Add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil to a large bowl. Put in the ball of dough and turn it so it is coated on all sides. Cover with cling wrap and a tea towel and place it in a warm place to double in bulk, about 2 1/2 hours.
- Drizzle about 1 tablespoon of olive oil into 2 9 x 13 inch jelly roll pans and rub it over the bottom and sides. Punch down the dough, divide it equally into 2 parts and push the dough on the pans. Using your fingertips, stretch the dough to cover the bottom of the pan. Cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place to rest, about an hour.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. When the focaccias have puffed up in the pan a little, using your fingertips, make little holes on the surface of the focaccia all over. Drizzle about 2 tablespoons of olive oil over each loaf, and spread it gently. Garnish both the pans, with the rosemary, lemon thyme, garlic, evenly distributed. Then sprinkle the maldon salt all over the focaccia.
- Place in the oven and immediately turn the heat down to 375F. Bake about 40 minutes, checking it half way through. The focaccia is ready when it's golden-brown. If it's not golden brown after 40 min, turn on the broiler for 2 min - checking every 30 seconds to make sure that the foccacia does not burn.
- Remove bread from oven. Using a hot pad or spatula, remove the bread from each pan and place on a wire rack to cool slightly. It's ready! Cut the focaccia into rectangular squares about 2x4 inch.
- Assembly:
- In a small serving bowl or shallow plate, add the burrata. Cover the sides of each burrata with half of the tomato confit. Save the other half in the fridge upto 2 weeks for other uses.
- To serve, add a bit of the burrata, tomato confit on top of a piece of focaccia. Add a slice of peach or 2 on top. Top it with torn basil. Drizzle about a teaspoon of the tomato confit flavorful oil n this piece. Sprinkle with maldon salt and black pepper. EAT and SAVOR!
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