Pear, date & walnut salad with creamy stilton dressing
Serves 6
Easy
Prep:
No cooking needed
Gary Rhodes' perfect starter for a Boxing day lunch, made with lots of leftovers from the day before
Skip to ingredients
- 3 ripe pearsquartered and cored, peel left on
- juice 1 lime
- 100g crème fraîche
- 300g stiltoncrumbled, room temperature
- 1-2 tbsp gingersyrup (from a jar of ginger in syrup)
- 100g pack broken walnuts
- 12 dates(Medjool are good), stoned and chopped
- walnut oilfor drizzling
- 225g bag mixed salad leaves
- 1 large watercressdivided into sprigs
Nutrition: per serving
- kcal574
- fat41g
- saturates17g
- carbs36g
- sugars0g
- fibre4g
- protein17g
- salt1.05glow
Method
step 1
Cut the pear quarters into thin slices and toss in a bowl with the lime juice to help protect their natural colour. Blend the crème fraîche with half the stilton, ginger syrup to taste, and enough water (3-4 tbsp) to give a smooth, thick coating consistency. (Don’t add too much water or it may separate.)
step 2
Scatter the pear slices over six serving plates and follow with the walnuts, dates and remaining cheese. Can be prepared to this stage up to an hour ahead.
step 3
Drizzle each salad with a little of the dressing and some walnut oil. Season with a grinding of pepper – you shouldn’t need salt, as the cheese is salty. Mix the salad leaves and watercress very lightly with just a bit more dressing – some leaves should be touched by the dressing, some untouched. Gently pile the leaves on top of each salad.
