Salad Tulipe with Poached Bartlett Pears and Point Reyes Original Blue Cheese

For best results, use just-ripe pears. Bartlett, Bosc or Anjou work best when poaching. You can use hard pears if you increase the time they cook in the wine to soften them. The idea is to end up with a pear, just soft enough that it can still be cut and still holds together. In this recipe I'm using red wine since I like the color contrast with the green lettuce, but if you prefer you can use white wine instead.

Course Salad/Appetizer

Cuisine American/French Fusion

Keyword Bibb Lettuce, Butterleaf Salad, Point Reyes Blue Cheese, Red Wine Poached Pears, Salad, Salad Tulipe, Walnut Dressing

Prep Time 15

Total Time 1 15

Servings people

Author David of Sunset & Sewanee

Ingredients

Poached Pear

2 cups wine, red
1/3 cup sugar, granulated/caster
2 whole star anise
2 sticks cinnamon
1 whole vanilla bean, split
2 whole pear, like Bartlet or Bosc peeled, split, and core removed

Walnut Dressing

4 tbsp walnut oil After opening walnut oil refrigerate after use to keep it fresh.
2 tbsp sherry vinegar
2 tbsp grape seed oil You can substitute any neutral flavored oil like vegetable, canola or avocado
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 rsp black pepper

Salad Tulipe Assembly for each salad

5-6 leaves butter leaf lettuce, aka bibb lettuce, cleaned and leaves separated
2 tbsp walnuts, toasted, slightly crushed
2-3 oz. blue cheese like Point Reyes
1/2 whole pear, poached, sliced
3 tbsp walnut dressing

Instructions

Poaching Pears in red wine

Combine the wine, sugar, star anise, cinnamon and vanilla bean in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until sugar dissolves. Add the pears and bring to the boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer, turning occasionally, for 1 hour or until pears are tender. Use a slotted spoon to transfer pears to a heatproof bowl.
Increase heat to high and bring the syrup up to a boil. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes or until the syrup thickens slightly. Pour over the pears and set aside for 10 minutes to cool. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 4 hours or overnight to chill.

Walnut Dressing

Add all of the dressing ingredients to a shaker with a tight fitting lid. Shake vigorously until mixed. Reserve till needed. Shake before using.

Toasting Walnuts

Preheat an oven to 375 degrees.
Add 2/3 cup of raw shelled walnuts to a baking sheet and insert into oven for 6 minutes to 8 minutes maximum. When the walnuts are slightly toasted and fragrant, remove them from the baking sheet and allow to cool. Just before service, crush the walnuts with your hands as you add them to the salad.

Salad Tulipe Assembly

Wash and prepare Bibb lettuce leaves. Carefully disconnect each leaf at the root and trim the excess at the bottom. Each individual Bibb lettuce should provide 2 or 3 servings, so keep this in mind when working up how much you will need.
Place a lettuce leaf in the center of a chilled salad plate. Top with a few crushed, toasted walnuts, dabs of the Point Reyes Original Blue Cheese and a little bit of the Walnut Dressing.
Repeat the process above until you have stacked 5 or 6 layers of the lettuce leaves/walnut/cheese/dressing.
Add the sliced poached pears around the bottom of the salad and drizzle with a little bit of the reduced wine mixture. Dot the plate with more of the Point Reyes Blue Cheese Original, crushed walnuts and drizzle the whole thing with a little more of the walnut dressing.

Notes

Be sure to always use fresh walnuts. Fresh walnuts only have a shelf life of 6 months in the pantry or 1-2 years if kept tightly sealed and frozen.

Make sure the pears are cooked until soft, if you are using unripe ones. If you suspect they are a little hard or under cooked, slice a small sliver off and taste it.