Caprese salad by EILEEN GOLDFINGER in her Ocean Grove kitchen.
By Eileen Goldfinger, food editor @Blogfinger.net and Paul Goldfinger (right hand man). Re-post 2022.
We had family over for a chicken dinner last night, but the stars of the show were the Jersey tomatoes done up by Eileen who prepared her Caprese (Capri style) salad with slices of tomato alternating with sliced fresh mozzarella; See the actual recipe below.
The chicken thighs and wings. (thicken chis) were prepared with a dry rub and then finished with Wegmans’ organic sweet chili sauce.
In addition we served fresh yellow Jersey corn from Wegmans. (4 for $2.00)
The crop of Jersey tomatoes is at its prime, now, and you can get them all over. They have ripened quickly due to the heat wave; $2.49 per pound and they are wonderful. We have purchased them at Matts in Belmar, ($3.50 per pound 8/14/26). And also Asbury Sunset Avenue market on Saturdays, and Wegmans Ocean. We love the Asbury Sunset market, and there is parking.
Delicious Orchards will ship them for you.
Remember to look for the fruits where the red reaches the stem and don’t buy if they are too mushy to the touch.
They should have a slight give when gently squeezed, and that is a fine life lesson for guys on a date.
Here is Eileen’s Caprese salad recipe:
Ingredients:
NJ beefsteak tomatoes
Handmade mozzarella*
Fresh basil
Fig flavored balsamic vinegar
Tuscan extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Assembling the salad:
Cut four quarter inch slices of beefsteak tomato
Place the slices on a plate and sprinkle with salt
Place a slice of mozzarella on top of each tomato slice and place one or two large basil leaves on each slice of cheese.
Drizzle a small amount of balsamic vinegar over each stack and then drizzle a small amount of extra virgin olive oil over each stack.
Repeat the above steps creating four stacks of 2-layers each.
Use smaller basil leaves as garnish on the plate.
Serves two.
*The wonderful homemade mozzarella came from Antonio’s Gourmet at 2201 Sunset Avenue, Wanamassa. Their balls are very big, but you can get smaller ones at Wegman’s. Ask Mario about it.
Fill the night with song… Music, family and good food—-a fine recipe for a family gathering.
Here is FRANK SINATRA regarding a tomato he found in Italy:
My dad used to grow beefsteak tomatoes. They were the best! Very ‘meaty’! They were so large that one thick slice was the size of a slice of bread. On summer evenings we’d have a supper of BLT sandwiches. The smell of the bacon cooking made my mouth water! Assembling a BLT was an art form to me. Only Hellman’s Mayonnaise allowed on fresh toasted white bread. Then add a big slice of beefsteak, a layer of bacon(not too crisp), fresh green iceberg lettuce and the final slice of toast with Mayo on it!
A sight to behold!
We’d have sides of homemade potato salad and homemade baked beans.
Memories of those lazy summer evenings in the 50’s! Yummy!
As a child, the neighborhood kids would intone, “The whole egg, the whole egg, the whole egg goes into Hellman’s real mayonnaise…”, a popular TV jingle. I actually preferred Miracle Whip.
RRS: Sounds delicious.
My parents took us to Coney Island from Jersey and they packed a lunch of tuna salad sandwiches on Russian rye with big black seeds; and with raw onions and Hellman’s mayo. Wegmans Ocean carries that bread…ask in the bakery.
Mom brought whole tomatoes, and we ate those Jerseys like apples, with a sprinkle of salt.
It was so crowded on that Coney beach that someone might accidentally take a bite of your sandwich.
Then after the beach we went back to the car, put towels on the windows and changed into shorts. There was always some sand caught in invisible places.
Then it was off to Nathans for their hot dogs. (“We’ll go to Coney* and eat baloney on a role”) and hot fries fresh out of the boiling oil and served in a paper cone.
The Nathan’s line stretches horizontally across the broad counter and then vertically about 6 deep. And then it’s off to Shatzkin’s knishes right out of the oven–I liked the ones with mashed potatoes.
We also had corn, bubbling in a big vat of boiling water. The corn guy would grab one with his tongs and hand it over to you. Add butter and salt. Heaven!
*This lyric is from “Manhattan” by Rodgers and Hart. Hart was a great lyricist, but he had issues. Lucky for us, Rodgers wound up with Oscar Hammerstein as lyricist. (and he in turn was mentor to Stephen Sondheim.)
I remember, as a child, enjoying sandwiches with a thick slice of a vine ripened Jersey tomato (from our backyard garden) on white bread slathered with some Hellman’s mayonnaise. Heaven!
Oh my, that dish looks delicious! I’m going to attempt to copy it immediately. Nice job, Eileen, looks like a magazine!