Every once in a while, we eat a restaurant dish so sublime that we order another plate seconds after taking the first bite. At St. Anselm in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, ordering two of the Grilled Tomato and Burrata appetizers is the pro move. Hot and cold, charred and sweet, creamy and crunchy—the dish is practically an ode to the philosophy that food doesn't get better than simple, fresh ingredients expertly prepared.
We love it so much that associate food editor Rick Martinez adapted the dish for you. Behold: a refined new Caprese that gives you an excuse to fire up your grill, and only requires ingredients you probably already have on hand.
First step? Pick up the ripest, sweetest heirloom tomatoes you can find and a ball of oozy-gooey burrata. Cut those tomatoes into one-inch wedges. The other ingredients you'll need are red wine vinegar, salt, extra virgin olive oil, and purple basil. Martinez prefers purple basil here for color and flavor. It's a touch spicier, its flavor a cross between Italian green and Thai basil, so it imparts warm hints of cinnamon and cardamom.
Get the grill going. Martinez suggests getting the grill super hot and the grates extremely clean, because any food remnants on the grates will stick to your delicate heirloom tomatoes. To clean the grill thoroughly, take a brush to the grates while it's ripping hot. Then brush the grates with some vegetable oil. This way, you won't have to grease up your tomatoes before throwing them on; greasing the food (rather than the grates) often results in that unappetizing burned oil flavor.
Once everything's clean, greased up, and ready to go, grill the tomato wedges for about two minutes on each side. The grill will bring out more of the tomatoes' natural sugar and add dimension with those gorgeous char marks. But don't overdo it: You want to taste the tomatoes, and don't want to mess with them too much.
Take them off the grill and serve with cold wedges of burrata and some of the smaller purple basil leaves. The contrast between the warm, sweet, and slightly charred tomatoes and the cold, creamy burrata is exactly what you didn't know Caprese's always been missing. Add no more than a couple teaspoons of red wine vinegar, a light drizzle of olive oil, and a touch of Maldon salt and fresh cracked pepper. That's it. Oh, and one last tip? Save room for seconds. Trust us: You'll want them.