Caprese salad using 74-40

I had an opportunity to do a one-off catering gig for craft services for a movie being shot in our town this week. Of course, I took it :slight_smile: He wanted what amounted to “heavy hors d’orvres” for 150 people. This was to include NOT pizza, and he wanted a lot of wings. So, I trotted out my bestest flavors. I am digressing . . .

I talked him into trusting me to put out what he termed “special” snacks as this was the last day of shooting for the whole movie, and wanted a blow-out (probably to compete with catering doing the main meal 3 hours later). I looked into mine pantry and spied my wayward can of Stanislaus 74-40 tomato strips, and figured a warm spring night and ‘special’ screams for Caprese Salad from an Italian place. Ordered some fresh mozz Ciliegine (Grande was out of stock) and fresh basil . … drained the 74-40 and light rinse . . . tossed with mozz nuggets, EV olive oil and some kosher salt . . . a little coarse black pepper and generous chiffonade (little ribbons) of basil finished it off. It was the first thing devoured (the the breaded ravioli, of course). Try this if you can’t get good fresh tomatoes (I was having troubles). Quick, tomatoes are good, and it even makes a good calzone filling!

We showed well, and got lots of pats on the back when delivering the invoice to the guy. Telling you it is a surprise to suddenly need to cook 150 lbs of wings for a gig when you have maybe 100 in house for shift use. 1 fryer (50lb) takes a while to cook that many wings, I’ll say. Shia LeBoef is a Lemon Pepper guy (and he is a renowned picky eater on set).