Goatcheese salad with walnuts and pear
Goatcheese salad with pear and roasted walnuts
I sit on my chair. Well ok, more truthfully, I lie on the couch. There is still a faint smell of chocolate lingering in the air that makes me slightly nauseous. Too much chocolate in too little time cannot be good for a person. It’s been baking galore here; if not for our selves or for our friends I have been baking cupcakes for a client or shooting other cakes and cookies for another client. And no, not Christmas anymore. We have moved on to spring pictures already. It’s almost as bad as shooting for fashion although for that we are now in fall 2012 season. I can hardly remember what season we really have on hand!
In the midst of all that Christmas chaos I sometimes just need to get away from all the overly sweet or overly festive dishes that tend to dominate the december month. I feel more like eating fruit all day or enjoying a really tasty and simple salad. Because let’s face it; do you really need yet another recipe for a simple goatcheese salad? I always think that everyone already knows how to make a quick (but delicious) salad like this, but in case you do not know; Below is the recipe written out for you.
Goatcheese salad with pear and walnuts
Yield: 4
Prep Time: 20 mins
Cook Time: 15 mins
Total Time: 35 mins
Ingredients:
- 150g goatcheese
- 60ml walnut oil (plus extra for greasing the cheese)
- 6 slices bread (walnut bread is really good here, but you can use any stale or fresh bread you have left over)
- 80ml olive oil
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 2 handfuls salad leaves (radicchio is really nice here but use whatever salad leaves you like best. I've used rocket here and lamb's lettuce as that was available)
- 150 g watercress
- 1 pear (make sure it is a ripe pear)
- 60g walnuts (chopped and roasted)
Directions:
| Coat the goatcheese all around in walnutoil and cut the cheese in 4 rounds and put in the fridge for 15 minutes. | |
| Cut the crust from your bread and cut the bread in 2 cm cubes. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and fry the croutons keeping an eye on them for about 1 to 2 minutes until they are crispy and golden. Remove from the pan and leave to drain on kitchen towel. | |
| Mix the walnut oil, honey and lemonjuice in a little bowl and add salt and pepper to taste. | |
Divide your salad leaves across 4 plates. Cut the pear in slices and coat in lemonjuice to prevent discoloration, put the pear on top of the salad leaves and add the croutons and the chopped walnuts
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| Heat the grill at the highest setting and line a baking tray with baking paper. Put the cheese slices on the baking tray, sprinkle with walnut oil and put the cheese under the grill for 1-2 minutes or until the top becomes golden brown and the cheese starts to melt. Put a piece of goatcheese on each salad plate and sprinkle the dressing over and serve immediately. | |
Note
Everyone has a version of this classic salad, and there are probably as many variations out there as people but still... this one's good too!
Recipe from Delicious cookbook by Valli Little
It’s nothing new, but it is incredibly delicious and using homemade croutons does make it better. Making your croutons from walnut bread or a really good sourdough bread will make this simple salad even a little bit more special. You can use whatever saladleaves you have on hand right now. Radicchio would have been nice but couldn’t be found, so we used a combination of rocket, watercress and lamb’s lettuce that we could find. After having lunch with such a delicious salad, I feel lighter, healthier and ready to tackle the next Christmas task at hand; figuring out on how earth to prepare an entire turkey!
Appetizer
Asian
Bread
Breakfast
Desserts & other sweets
Healthy
This sounds really nice, I’ll make sure to get those ingredients when I go shopping, nice weekend lunch
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 9th, 2011 at 16:52
Yes I love simple salads like this!
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You are right. There are a lot of recipes out there for this salad and it is one I never tire of.
I love that napkin you used Simone. Are they embroidered? We are doing very little entertaining this year as a lot of our friends and family are traveling so I am looking forward to not over doing at all :0)
Enjoy the festivities this season!
[Reply]
Simone (junglefrog) — December 9th, 2011 at 16:53
The napkin has some sort of print on it. It’s not embroidered; I would say it is stamped rather then anything else.. But I borrowed it from my friend so I did not look that closely..
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That is one of my favorite combination! A marvelous salad with attitude.
Cheers,
Rosa
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 9th, 2011 at 16:54
Lol.. not sure about the attitude of the salad but it sure is tasty!
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I think this is perfectly festive and it is so beautiful for “just” a salad! And I know 3 men who would just adore this! The perfect lunch, Simone!
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 9th, 2011 at 16:55
It’s a shame really that Tom cannot stand eating goatcheese.. Weird man he is in that respect!
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The lighting really makes this appear heavenly, or maybe that’s the goat cheese, either way it makes me hungry and want to use that fork to dig-in!
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Simone (junglefrog) — December 9th, 2011 at 16:57
Thanks Judy. Yes, it maybe a simple salad but it is really good!
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Ooh… I’m not even a goat cheese fan, but you might have just converted me. I’m a confirmed sucker for homemade croutons and the walnut oil is always amazing with pears. Plus, who doesn’t love warm, melty cheese?
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That looks wonderful.
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Now that is what I call a salad!
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