Mozzarella Tomato-Basil Panini

May 26th 2010

If you don't know by now I absolutely love my Panini Maker and put it to good use. It is one of the purchases in my kitchen that I can say I use very regularly. This combination of frezh mozzarella cheese and tomatoes in a basil-olive oil sauce is divine. And the great part about these sandwiches is they can be assembled ahead of time and just grilled in time for a party or in the morning for lunch. If you do not have a panini maker, these can be done on the stove top too on a pan.

Difficulty level : Easy

Time:  15 min 

Ingredients

• Mozzarella cheese cut in slices (~ 2 or 3 per panini)
• chopped fresh basil ( 1 or 2 tbsps)
• olive oil ( per liking) - 4 or 5 tbsps
• Tomatoes cut in slices (~ 2 or 3 per panini)
• pepper (optional)
• Bread slices (2 per panini)

Method de Preparation

1. Mix the half the olive oil and the basil in a cup and keep aside.
2. Lightly spread plain olive oil on one side of each bread slice, just a bit.
3. On the same bread slice, on the other side, spread this olive oil and basil mix. So you will have for each panini, two bread slices with plain olive oil on the outside and the olive oil and basil mix on the inside.
4. To assemble each panini,  stack bread, tomato and the mozzarella and the other bread slice. Throw in some fresh ground pepper if you like (optional).
5. And put in the panini maker, assembling your other sandwiches in the meantime.
6. Take out and serve with ketchup or just plain. 
7. This would go nicely with a fresh side salad and you have dinner and if you have any leftovers lunch also taken care of.

Variations: You could use shredded mozzarella but the chewy texture of the slices would be lost.