Recipe: Tomato & Mozzarella with Sel de Guerande

Remember how I visited Whole Foods on Cambie this weekend?

Well of *course* I couldn't leave empty handed!

I actually circle the store a couple times, oohing and aahing at their beautiful frosted mini cupcakes, their assortment of dried mushrooms, variety of salts, and selection of cheeses. I wanted a lot of products but didn't want to spend that much money, knowing that there was a huge mark up and I already had a fair amount of leftovers and food to work through at home.



I wound up buying some Fleur de Sel (de Guerande) and some dried lobster mushrooms.

For dinner one night, we had a simple salad. What follows is not a traditional recipe, but a sort of arrangement and garnishing of alternating mozzarella and ripe hot house tomatoes with drops of fig-scented balsamic vinegar, a couple pickled capers, a twist or two of black peppercorn, a pinch of chopped parsley, and of course, some fleur de sel.



The fleur de sel is about twenty to thirty times more expensive than regular table salt. This is owed to the fact that it is hand-harvested in a town in France (Guerande). There are different grades of salt coming from Guerande, but Fleur de Sel remains the top quality salt. Fleur de sel has a less harsh taste than table or sea salts and dissolves quickly on the tongue.

I actually debated about getting grey salt de Guerande at Whole Foods, and reasoned that it was half the price of the small tub of salt that I eventually walked out with, for about five times more...but the fancypants in me went with Fleur de Sel. :) Aaaah. Gotta love eating.