Marinated fresh cheese makes a wonderful addition to your antipasto bar, and this is a classic recipe.  I would normally use baby bocconcini balls which are about the size of a grape, but the store had only full size and pearl, so I went with pearl.  Full size balls, which are somewhere between the size of a golf ball and a clementine, would be delightful cut into wedges and coated in this marinade.  For that matter, water packed fresh mozzarella works just as well but you need to slice in into 1/4 inch thick slabs and serve the marinated rounds.  Don’t let the choices whey you down (a-huh-huh-huh-ha!) because they’re all the same product packaged differently, and that would be according to the size that the balls are rolled.

Anyway, I’m dithering.

If there is anyone in the kitchen with you at this point, please encourage their speedy retreat – make up an emergency errand that simply must be taken care of immediately, if you must.  You don’t want anybody to see how easy this is, because you will be done in roughly 60 seconds.  The thing is, some people have a ludicrously unfair perception about what makes food ‘good’, and this culminates in the feeling that the time you put into making a dish is a reflection on its quality.  Well, my friend, I disagree.  I have spent hours and hours on a complicated recipe, the ingredients of which cost more money than I would care to consider, and at the end I had a mediocre or even (dare I go this far?) not very good at all dish.  So, I say, let people taste it first and judge you later – and in the mean time, get them out of the kitchen and splash some water on your face before they get back so it looks like you were sweating.  Oh, the exertion of marinating cheese…..pant, pant……I hope it was worth the effort…..pant pant……

Herb Marinated Bocconcini Balls

Prep time:  hahahaha

Yields roughly 2 cups.

• 500 ml/2 cups/1 medium sized container of bocconcini balls *
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tsp basil
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt or to taste