The best salad in the whole wide world
Today I started organizing all my crazy jumbled recipes into one recipe keeper. What a great feeling.
There was a time when I wandered the deserted college campus in the middle of the night, looking for chocolate. I was convinced that there was a candy vending machine SOMEWHERE. I searched the dorms, the athletic fieldhouse, the dining halls. It reached a point where the search had gone on way too long, but surely it had to be somewhere and if I looked JUST a little more. Alas, no chocolate. Fruitless. Chocolate-less.
That is now how I feel about Roquefort Pear Salad. If there was Roquefort Pear Salad to be had, I would go out wandering in the middle of the night.
INGREDIENTS
- 1 head leaf lettuce, torn into bite-size pieces
- 3 pears - peeled, cored and chopped
- 5 ounces Roquefort cheese, crumbled
- 1 avocado - peeled, pitted, and diced
- 1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
- 1/4 cup white sugar
- 1/2 cup pecans
- 1/3 cup olive oil
- 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons white sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons prepared mustard
- 1 clove garlic, chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- fresh ground black pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS
- In a skillet over medium heat, stir 1/4 cup of sugar together with the pecans. Continue stirring gently until sugar has melted and caramelized the pecans. Carefully transfer nuts onto waxed paper. Allow to cool, and break into pieces.
- For the dressing, blend oil, vinegar, 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar, mustard, chopped garlic, salt, and pepper.
- In a large serving bowl, layer lettuce, pears, blue cheese, avocado, and green onions. Pour dressing over salad, sprinkle with pecans, and serve.
Some tips. Don’t bother caramelizing the pecans. Just buy some toasted or sugared pecans at the store. Double the oil and vinegar and mustard for the salad dressing. Get the bosc pears and chop them up. Don’t need to bother peeling them unless you want to. Roquefort is some version of blue cheese. Get regular crumbled blue cheese if you can’t find Roquefort. I don’t normally like blue cheese but it is fantastic in this salad. Trust me.
The. Best. Salad. Ever.
3 Comments »
Feb 13th 2008Everyday life & recipe
kailas on 13 Feb 2009 at 3:36 pm #
ya’ll made this and brought it over once, eh? if so, i agree! very tasty! katie has a variation she makes with grapes instead of pears and with raspberry vinaigrette, which is also quite good.
Jamie c on 13 Mar 2009 at 5:36 pm #
Wow, stumbled on to this site and made “The best salad in the whole wide world” and we loved it. Great presentation and the flavors were amazing. We gave it a five star rating. Jamie & Michelle Toronto, ON canada
Melanie Marie on 17 Jan 2010 at 9:06 pm #
I stumbled upon this recipe and it is so good!!!!! I recommend it to anyone.