This simple salad combines just four main ingredients: sweet tomatoes (and you really do need to use ripe and flavoursome summer tomatoes), salty olives, fragrant basil and nutty, herbaceous extra virgin olive oil. They combine to create the perfect salad.
I find that peeling the tomatoes enhances their sweetness. Greek basil works particularly well in this salad because it has tiny leaves that you can leave whole so they stay bright green without discolouring. If you can’t find Greek basil, then use a large-leaf variety and tear the leaves into smaller pieces. The flavour will be the same, but the appearance will not be as good, because cutting or tearing the leaves will cause them to bruise and discolour somewhat.