Grilled Pear, Walnut and Blue Cheese Salad with Truffled Honey Dressing

It's finally getting warm enough for salads again!


But a warm salad is still the best of both worlds until the Spring weather settles in for good, and with stone fruit still a while away yet Pears seemed the perfect choice. Deeper flavours match beautifully with pears, and as I was lucky enough to snatch up some glorious goat cheese at the markets I was good to go and ready to lighten up my lunch
Don't worry though, this salad isn't really as cheffy as it sounds and won't take long at all to throw together. Of course you can use any blue cheese you like, and the honey can be any one you have on hand- don't let any of the specialised sounding ingredients put you off this yummy salad, it will still taste pretty special indeed

For two serves:

Nice Firm Pear
about 50gm Blue Goat Cheese- I used Udder Delights
Handful of Walnuts
Big handful of mixed Salad Leaves
1 slice gluten free Bread
1 clove Garlic
Olive Oil
Lemon Juice
Truffle Honey- or another strong flavoured honey will do



Grill or toast your slice of bread, then rub it lightly with the clove of garlic. This will give a gorgeous, gentle, garlicky touch to the salad without overpowering it

Tear it up into nice chunky croutons- I like the rough, rustic look

Cut the pear into fairly thin slices- this is just one pear here. Then quickly drizzle it with olive oil before it goes brown and oxidises

Grill the pear slices on either side until they are just softened and have lovely scorched stripes across them. Don't over cook them though, or they will just go mushy and disintegrate when you fiddle around with them later

Toast off your walnuts to intensify the flavours and make them nice and crunchy

Crumble up the cheese into nice big chunks. The easiest way to do this is to twist a knife in the cheese and it should just flake apart

Make a dressing with a ratio of about 3:1 oil to lemon juice, a vinegar base would be too strong on this salad as it's already so full of flavour. Add a good teaspoon or so to taste of the honey, a bit of salt if needed- but don't forget the cheese is quite salty- and mix well

Full of truffley yummies!

Pop all of the ingredients except the pear into a bowl

Drizzle on the dressing and toss gently until nicely coated

Place a nice big pile of the salad on your serving plate- mound it up nice and high

Drape artistically with pear slices and make it all look pretty

So yummy- SWEETness from the pears and honey, SOURness in the lemon dressing, a slight BITTERness from the greens and walnuts, SALT and UMAMI from the creamy blue cheese. CRUNCH from the nuts and croutons and CREAMiness from the cheese- this is one of those salads that has it all!

I guess if you really wanted to add something to make this more of a main course salad for someone like BigJ who needs meat at every meal, I would serve it with a few slices of rare roast beef draped through as well- but that's strictly for carnivores only

So Dear Readers, what do you like in a salad, and would you need meat in this one to make you happy?

Octopus's Garden

What a perfect name for my Octopus Salad

Soft as butter braised octopus, crunchy fresh vegetables, smooth sweet pepper strips and a tangy vinegar dressing- all tossed together to a Glorious Garden Salad with a bit of Extra Excitement!


I used to work at a Greek Cafe that specialised in Seafood

They also owned a fresh seafood market stall in the same complex, so the produce really was quite lovely. One of the many behind-the-scenes secrets of this establishment was the cement mixer that was in constant use out the back of the shop. We sold hundreds of dozens of oysters each weekend, and the main duty of the mixer was to tumble the un-opened oysters around in it a couple of times to knock the sharp edges off the shells so the little man who did nothing-all-day-every-day-but-shuck-oysters didn't have his hands cut to ribbons in the first few minutes. In the odd time in between oyster loads, the mixer would be hosed out and loaded up with octopus. Slosh, slosh, slosh, around and around they would go, all the while breaking down the texture and sloshing away the slime. Much easier than the traditional method of beating the octopus on a rock for ages in a rock pool by the sea- especially in land locked Canberra


I bought some medium small fresh octopus at the markets this morning. Not the tiny little baby ones that you can get frozen, or a Leviathan of the deep either, but nice manageable octopups of about 250 grm each. Now you either need to cook octopus super hot and super fast, or slow and lovingly to have it at it's best. I went the slow way, so start this recipe by braising the octopus the day before, or a few hours earlier than you intend to eat it. If you really want, you can also cook the octopus in the pressure cooker for 15-20 minutes if you're in a hurry

Tangles of Tentacles

Your friendly Fishmonger will be able to clean the little beasties up for you, but otherwise it's fairly easy- just a bit messy :)
Just split open the head carefully and scrape out all the goopy bits. Be careful though, try not to break the ink sac! There is a beak between the tentacles that needs to be cut out, and you can cut the eyes out too if they bother you

For braising I used 1/4 cup of Red Wine Vinegar, 3 Bay Leaves and 3 whole Garlic Cloves- I didn't bother to peel them

Pop the vinegar, garlic and bay leaves in a pot with the octopus and cover with water

Bring to the boil, then simmer away for about an hour and a half to two hours, or until the octopus is lovely and very tender.
You might want to do this with the window open or with the kitchen fan on. The smell isn't bad or all that fishy- just rather pervasive

The water will change colour as they cook, so will the skin of the octopus too- don't worry though it's still OK, it's meant to do that :)

Let the beasties cool in the liquid, then drain well

See how the meat has firmed up and gone a lovely pinky colour? Don't worry about the skin colour- if it bothers you, you can peel it off, but that's a lot of work on the smaller ones

While it cools down, get on with the salad part
I liked the idea of a Greek style salad with capsicum, cucumber, sweet little tomatoes, olives, and I threw in some pepper strips that I had marinating in the fridge too for another texture and more sweetness

Cut the octopus into bite sized pieces, leaving nice sections of tentacles whole to look pretty

Fry them off in some olive oil on high heat until nicely golden on the lighter bits. I like to use some of the oil that the peppers were marinated in to add a bit of extra flavouring

When done, quickly splash in an extra couple of tablespoons of the red wine vinegar and deglaze the pan while tossing the octopus around to coat all the pieces nicely

Pull off the heat and let them rest and cool a tad while you assemble the salad

On a bed of nice crunchy greens, place the olives, tomatoes, cucumbers and capsicums then add the octopus. Drape some bits of pepper strips over it artistically and carefully toss around. Drizzle it all with the pan liquid from deglazing and some lovely extra virgin Olive Oil

A lovely hearty salad for lunch or dinner, or you could use the octopus as part of an antipasta platter or mezze plate instead- yummo!

So Dear Readers, would You Like to be Under the Sea, in an Octopus's Garden with me?

We would be so happy you and me, No one there to tell us what to do, I'd like to be under the sea In an octopus' garden with you :)

(Octopus's Garden lyrics by The Beatles, 1963)

Dukkah Crusted Lamb Cutlets with Fig and Goat Chese Salad

Some lovely finds at the market this week.

Soft ash goats cheese, tiny lamb cutlets, and beautiful fresh ripe figs. Yumm.... Obviously they needed to be combined together.

This seems like a lot of steps for one dish Dear Readers, but really they don't take long at all.
The dukkah can be made days in advance, and the cutlets can be coated a day ahead as well if you like. The salad is 5 minutes work, tops. So there's no excuses for missing out on a lovely meal even if you're in a hurry, with just these few ingredients in the fridge.



Dukkah

3/4 cup Hazelnuts
1/4 cup sesame seeds
1 tablespoon coriander seeds
1/2 teaspoon sumac
Good pinch of salt flakes

Toast the hazlenuts in a dry pan over medium heat, until starting to change colour.

Add in the rest of the ingredients, and toast until the seeds are a lovely golden colour and the spices are releasing their aromatic oils. Make sure you keep stirring or shaking the pan so they don't burn. Pull out a few hazlenuts to keep as a final garnish.

Let them cool a bit, then pulse them in a food processor until they are roughly- but fairly finely chopped.
That's it, dukkah's done and dusted.

Pat your little cutlets dry with kitchen towel, then dip all over in a lovely olive oil- I used a beautiful smoked olive oil for a bit of extra va-voom!

Let the excess drip off, then dip the cutlet into the dukkah. Make sure it gets into all the nooks and crannies. This coating is not only delicious, but will help protect the meat from over cooking and drying out in the pan.

Pop the coated cutlets into a preheated pan on medium heat. There's no need to oil the pan, as you don't want to burn the dukkah or fry it too hard in oil. The oil you dipped the meat in will be fine.

Little cutlets like this don't require much cooking at all, they should be served nice pink and juicy, so watch them carefully.
If you had quite a lot of meat to cook off, it would be easier to sear them well, then put them all on an oven tray to finish cooking. That way they are all ready and hot at the same time for plating up.

Now, while all the lamb is cooking, it's time to make the salad.

Rip open a packet of pre-washed rocket leaves and scatter them artistically about your serving dish or plate.

Cut some perfectly ripe figs in half so that the luscious pink insides are showing, and pop them about too.

Slice or crumble on your goats cheese for the gorgeous creamy tang it brings to the party, scatter over the reserved hazlenuts, and voila!

Looks like something from a magazine doesn't it?

Now a bit of dressing is lovely to help the greens go down, but I like to serve mine separately, or srizzle it on after you've served your guests. My dressing consists of some scrummy Pukara Estate Fig Balsamic Vinegar whisked with a bit more of the olive oil. It tastes fantastic, but the dark colour stains the food.  Please serve it separately, you'll thank me.

So my Dearest Readers, so you like fresh figs, and how do you like to serve them when they're in season?

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