Burrata and Fruit with Fresh Pesto

A summery no-cook appetizer (or dinner)

Happy August! We’ve officially reached the part of summer where I want to spend as little time as possible standing over a hot stove or oven—if any at all. The good news is that the produce in the market these days is so good that it really doesn’t need to be cooked. So for the next few weeks (or longer, depending on how late California’s summer weather holds out) I’m going to be interspersing our regular interviews, and the recipes provided by other home cooks, with a variety of no-cook and low-cook recipes that make the most out of all the fabulous produce we are so lucky to have access to. I hope they help you bring summer to your table.

Burrata with Fruit and Fresh Pesto

Hot summer evenings call for snacking dinners—platters of cheeses and crackers, olives, and pickles, and perhaps some tinned fish. Add some fruit or vegetables, and you can have a full meal ready in minutes without ever turning on the stove.

This simple combination takes that idea up a level. By pairing a ball of creamy burrata with an assortment of fresh, sweet fruit, and then drizzling it all with a quick pesto-based sauce, I can get all the sweet, bright, sharp, and creamy flavors I love into one bite. (This arrangement also looks pretty spectacular.) Add some sliced baguette (toasted or not), and you have a perfect light dinner or cocktail-hour snack.

I know that for some reason burrata is “out” this year (at least according to New York Magazine), but I’m going to go ahead and enjoy this dish for the rest of the summer anyway, because the creaminess of this particular cheese is an excellent foil for soft, sweet fruit like perfectly ripe peaches and figs. Also, burrata’s texture is ideal for scooping onto toasts—no real cutting required.

The pesto I use here is very similar to the version I make for pasta, but I’ve doubled the olive oil to make the mixture thinner and easier to drizzle. I’ve also added a big splash of red wine vinegar, a trick I learned from the Parkside Cafe in Stinson Beach a couple years ago. The extra acid adds a bright, high note to the sauce that pairs well with the fruit.

Serves 4 as a hearty appetizer, 6-8 as a snack, or 2 as a light dinner

For the Pesto Sauce:
1 packed cup basil leaves (from about 1 large bunch)
1 large garlic clove
¼ cup shredded parmesan
¼ cup shredded pecorino Romano (or more parmesan)
1 tablespoon pine nuts, lightly toasted
1 small Meyer lemon
⅓ cup high-quality extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt

For the Composed Plate:
1 baguette
1 ball of burrata
Assorted fruit, very ripe (ideally a mix of things with different flavor profiles, like 1 peach, 2-3 apricots, 2-3 figs, 5-6 cherries)
High-quality extra virgin olive oil
Honey
1 teaspoon pine nuts, lightly toasted
Flakey sea salt

Make the Pesto Sauce:

1. Put the basil, garlic, parmesan, pecorino, and pine nuts into a food processor and use a microplane to grate the zest from the lemon into the mix. Process everything until you have a relatively smooth paste.

2. Scrape the sides of the processor, then, with the processor running, slowly pour the olive oil into the mixture, stopping to scrape the sides as needed.

3. When the sauce has a relatively smooth texture, season it with the vinegar, a big squeeze of lemon juice, and the salt. Run the processor for a few seconds, then taste the sauce and add more vinegar, lemon juice, or salt as needed.

Assemble the Plate:

1. Cut the baguette into ½” slices, angling the knife for longer pieces. Toast the slices until golden and slightly crunchy, then brush the top of each one with a little bit of olive oil.

2. Arrange the burrata in the center of a dinner plate. Pit the fruit, as needed, and cut it into pieces. (I like big wedges, for big, juicy—often sloppy—bites, but a big dice also works.) Arrange the fruit around the burrata and add some of the toasted bread to the side of the plate.

3. Use a fork to open the center of the burrata, so you can see the creamy interior. Drizzle some pesto over the cheese and the fruit, then drizzle on some olive oil and a few thin lashings of honey. Sprinkle the pine nuts and some sea salt on top.

4. Serve the cheese and fruit with additional pesto and the rest of the toast on the side. To eat, scoop some cheese onto a piece of toast and layer on some of the fruit, adding pesto to your taste.

From the Archives

The combination above reminded me of another no-cook, fruit-filled dish we enjoyed last year—the Arugula, Plum, and Fig Salad with Ricotta and Plum-Shallot Dressing from French-American cook Laurence Hauben. It’s another perfect dish to make during this part of the summer, when both figs and plums are in season.

Other Summery California Recipes

A bunch of my fellow California-based Substackers have also shared delightful, summery recipes in their newsletters recently: Andrea Nguyen posted a fantastic Viet-Thai Melon Salad a few days ago, and last week Paola Briseño-González posted an amazing looking recipe for Spicy Eggplant Tostadas with Seared Tuna and Sesame Kale. Local publications also have lots of delicious options: Over at the LA Times, Ben Mims put together a collection of recipes that celebrate watermelon; the Mercury News has a recipe for Thai-inspired steamed mussels; and the San Diego Union-Tribune has a piece pairing two delicious-looking, produce-heavy recipes, Slow-Cooked Lamb Shoulder with Green Beans and Tomato Salad with Smokey Eggplant Flatbread.

Photos: Georgia Freedman