The Leaning Tower of Pisa

(makes one tower per person)

• - 250 grams of mozzarella
• - 80 grams of pine nuts
• - 200 grams of sun-dried tomatoes (in a jar)
• - 200 grams of cream cheese
• - 200 grams of mascarpone
• - 1 pot of basil
• - Salt, pepper, olive oil, balsamic vinegar 

Let's start by roasting the pine nuts to bring out their intense, wonderfully nutty flavor. Simply add the pine nuts to our 20 cm Mineral B pan from de Buyer without adding any fat or oil and roast them over medium heat. Shake the pan occasionally to prevent the nuts from burning. When the kitchen smells wonderful, the pine nuts are ready. Now we take the nuts off the heat and let them cool.

In the next step, we let the sun-dried tomatoes drain a little and cut them into small pieces. Since the tomatoes have a very intense flavor, make sure they are really small pieces. On the other hand, you don't have to puree the tomatoes, we still want something to bite into.

Now it's time to harvest the basil. Pluck off all the leaves (or as many as you want), rinse them with water, and then dry them a little. Now the basil is also cut into small strips. Whether you roll the basil like a cigar or lay it in a pile and cut it up is up to you. In the end, the basil strips end up with the sun-dried tomatoes.

Meanwhile, the pine nuts should have cooled down enough to be processed further. They face the same fate as basil and tomatoes, meaning they will be chopped. For this job, the Küchenprofi rocking knife is excellent, while "The Knife", one of our favorite knives, also performs very well.

Now the pine nuts also go into the bowl with tomatoes and basil and everything is mixed together.

Now we come to the creamy part of the story: In another bowl, we mix cream cheese and mascarpone. We have some well-functioning whisks in our range. However, the job can also be done quite well with a dough scraper. You will find that cream cheese and mascarpone are quite stubborn when it comes to mixing, so the matter can be smoothed out - literally - with a splash of olive oil.

Once the cream cheese and mascarpone have been processed into a homogeneous mass, we add about ¾ of the tomato-basil-pine nut mixture, salt and pepper it properly, and mix it all together to make a delicious filling for our towers. This filling can also be prepared in advance and stored in the refrigerator. Simply take it out of the refrigerator in time before serving and stir it again so that the mixture does not come out too cold on the plate or in the towers.

Now cut the mozzarella into slices about 1 to 1 ½ centimeters thick and arrange the first slice, our ground floor, on the plate.

Next comes a layer of our filling. The easiest way is to transfer the mixture to a piping bag and distribute it evenly over the mozzarella. But between us: a freezer bag with a corner cut off works just as well.

Proceed in the same way with mozzarella slice number two. The final layer is our third mozzarella slice. However, this one does not receive any cream as a finish, but our wonderfully crunchy mixture, of which you have left ¼. Now simply decorate our top floor with a little balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and after a pinch of good sea salt, nothing stands in the way of enjoyment.

We like to enjoy our towers with fresh white bread and cool rosé.

Butch wishes buon appetito.