This is a very Mediterranean dish for a quick lunch, and a great way to use up any stale bread. The contrast of the soft, cheese-filled parcels and the crunchy fried bread is excellent.

The idea for soaking sultanas in Aperol comes from Amy Bryant in The Telegraph Magazine. I wasn’t too convinced when I read about it, but when I tried it I found it gave the dried grapes an intriguingly savoury taste.

Go to this post for how to make an Aperol spritz.

Click on this link for an interesting guest post on making fresh mozzarella in a central London dairy.

Recipe for salami-enveloped mozzarella with herb croûtons

For two

• 12gg/5 oz mozzarella (drained weight)
• 6 pieces of elliptical shape (effectively two circles) salami
• 60g/4 tbsp/¼ cup of black olive paste – tapenade
• About ten basil leaves, and a few sprigs of thyme
• 20 sultanas soaked in a tbsp. of Aperol or Earl Grey tea
• 60g/2 oz rocket, roughly chopped
• 40g/⅓ cup of plain flour seasoned only with freshly ground pepper, no salt
• 1 egg
• Olive oil for frying
• 75g/2.5 oz stale bread – ideally olive ciabatta, diced quite small, including the crust.

1. Put your plates in to warm.
2. Beat the egg in a small bowl, and empty the pepper-seasoned flour into another
3. Begin to heat a frying pan with a little olive oil in it

4. 

   Slice the mozzarella into as many slices as you can – I can just manage five – if one looks smaller, allocate any broken off bits to that one.

5. Coat one side of the mozzarella slice with about a tsp of tapenade, and put, tapenade side down on one half of the salami. Coat the other face of the slice with a bit more tapenade. Fold over the salami to encase the mozzarella.
6. Dip first in the beaten egg, then in the flour and fry.
7. Snip the leaves of the herbs into the diced bread, and add to the frying pan – slurp over a slug more of olive oil – enough to get the bread frying and golden.
8. Meanwhile continue making and frying the mozzarella envelopes.
9. If you have any beaten egg left over, dribble over the frying croûtons, and mix in with them
10. Serve the envelopes with the croûtons mixed in with the shredded rocket and the soaked sultanas.