Wednesday 10 February 2016

Pear and Blue Cheese salad

Pears and Blue Cheese are a classic combination. With a few additions they can be made into a really spectacular salad. Here's how...


On a small glass plate I laid a bed of carefully selected Endive and Lettuce leaves, choosing only the finest specimens.

I added some cubes of creamy Blue Cheese. I used the one called Castello, but Cambazola would be good, so would Dolcelatte.

I added some pieces of Walnut, which had been drizzled with Pumpkin Seed oil and toasted. (If I had had any Walnut oil, I would have used that instead.). Toasting enhances the nutty flavour of the Walnuts.

I added a firm but ripe Williams pear, cored but not peeled.

The finishing touch (an inspired spur-of-the-moment choice, I must admit) was a drizzle of Rapeseed oil flavoured with Lemongrass and Thyme. This oil is produced by the Cold Pressed Oil Company, based in Crondall, about 5 miles from Fleet, where we live. It lifted the salad to new heights!


Unfortunately I added the oil after I had taken my photos, so you'll just have to imagine the salad glistening with little drizzles of bright yellow oil!


In my humble opinion, this was a near-perfect salad: lots of textures, lots of different but complementary flavours, and big visual appeal. I'd be happy to get that as a starter in a very posh restaurant.

5 comments:

  1. I'm sure it tasted as good as it looks - but I have a feeling if they served it in a posh restaurant, it would be more of a spoonful in the middle of a very large plate ;)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Margaret, you are probably right, but actually the plates on which my salad was served are very small - and one pear between 2 people is surely not too much!

      Delete
  2. This looks wonderful! I have tried pear with burrata but not with blue cheese.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I make the same salad, but instead of the Blue Cheese, I add rounds of panko encrusted flash sauteed goat cheese. The contrast of cool salad and warm goat cheese is lovely, too.

    Tracy from New York

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That sounds very nice, Tracy, but regrettably my wife dislikes Goat's cheese!

      Delete

Thank you for taking time to leave me a comment! Please note that Comment Moderation is enabled for older posts.