The Salad
This morning we were reminiscing over our favorite salads. I realized how the salad course of a meal has become mundane in the name of convenience - bagged salad, bottled dressings, typical, boring, salad-bar ingredients. When was the last time you said, "Wow, that was a really great salad!" (Don't get me wrong - I love bagged salad - one of the best inventions.)
Our favorite salads:
The beet salad from Easter.
Mandarin Salad from "Betty Crocker's Best Loved Recipes" (an excellent book). The salad has mandarin orange slices, toasted-sugared-sliced almonds, and a home made sweet-sour vinaigrette. Sometimes I use my mango vinegar. I typically take this to potlucks and it always goes over well.
And now, Baked Goat Cheese salad, served last night.
Like the beets, I was attracted to the recipe because it sounded good, despite my general dislike for goat cheese. I figure if something I normally don't like is attractive, it has a good chance of tasting rich and sophisticated. The results changed my view of goat cheese forever. Dramatic, huh?
The main ingredient of this simple salad was a golf ball of chevre goat cheese, rolled in chives and thyme, dipped in egg with Dijon mustard, then rolled in Melba toast crumbs. The final blob was formed into a 1" high cylinder, frozen, then baked in a hot, hot oven. Sounds silly, but the end result was fabulous. Serve on a bed of greens with a simple vinaigrette of Dijon, olive oil, red wine vinegar and shallots, and wa-lah!
A variant is to serve it with apples, walnuts and dried cherries, with cider vinegar instead of red wine vinegar. I bought the ingredients for this variation, but in the time-crunched end, we went with the simplified version.
Today we bought more cheese to use up the leftover herbs and Melba crumbs. :)
Salad with Herbed Baked Goat Cheese and Vinaigrette, from Cook's Illustrated Nov/Dec 2003
Rating: excellent!
Our favorite salads:
The beet salad from Easter.
Mandarin Salad from "Betty Crocker's Best Loved Recipes" (an excellent book). The salad has mandarin orange slices, toasted-sugared-sliced almonds, and a home made sweet-sour vinaigrette. Sometimes I use my mango vinegar. I typically take this to potlucks and it always goes over well.
And now, Baked Goat Cheese salad, served last night.
Like the beets, I was attracted to the recipe because it sounded good, despite my general dislike for goat cheese. I figure if something I normally don't like is attractive, it has a good chance of tasting rich and sophisticated. The results changed my view of goat cheese forever. Dramatic, huh?
The main ingredient of this simple salad was a golf ball of chevre goat cheese, rolled in chives and thyme, dipped in egg with Dijon mustard, then rolled in Melba toast crumbs. The final blob was formed into a 1" high cylinder, frozen, then baked in a hot, hot oven. Sounds silly, but the end result was fabulous. Serve on a bed of greens with a simple vinaigrette of Dijon, olive oil, red wine vinegar and shallots, and wa-lah!
A variant is to serve it with apples, walnuts and dried cherries, with cider vinegar instead of red wine vinegar. I bought the ingredients for this variation, but in the time-crunched end, we went with the simplified version.
Today we bought more cheese to use up the leftover herbs and Melba crumbs. :)
Salad with Herbed Baked Goat Cheese and Vinaigrette, from Cook's Illustrated Nov/Dec 2003
Rating: excellent!
posted by hbt @ 1:52:00 PM
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