pear, blue cheese, walnut, and sweet pecan salad recipe

This is a slight variation on a recipe from my beloved www.epicurious.com. I made it in a nice big wooden bowl that was a wedding present from Jerusalem friends. Below is the original recipe:

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 medium shallot, minced
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1 5-ounce bag mixed baby greens
• 2 large ripe pears, halved, cored, thinly sliced lengthwise
• 1 cup crumbled blue cheese
• 1 cup walnuts, toasted, coarsely chopped

Preparation

Whisk first four ingredients in small bowl to blend. Gradually whisk in oil. Season dressing to taste with salt and pepper.

Toss greens in large bowl with enough dressing to coat. Divide greens among 6 plates. Top with pear slices, dividing equally. Sprinkle with cheese and walnuts. Drizzle lightly with remaining dressing and serve.

simmer down notes: 

• I toasted the walnuts because I think that just about every nut that I’ve ever met is improved by toasting.
• I didn’t have shallots or thyme; I added some very finly chopped red onion to the dressing.
• I didn’t use half a cup of olive oil because that sounded like a ridiculously large quantity. I added a bit of demerara sugar to the dressing.
• I added candied pecans to this salad because I think they’re so incredibly delicious.
• I didn’t put the salad together like the recipe says – I just arranged it all in a bowl.
• I put this salad together very gradually so that the bits that needed to be fresh would be fresh. I bought the greens in the morning, and it was only dressed at the last minute. As we started eating and one of the guests asked whether the recipe was mine or if I found it somewhere and I was about to explain that it wasn’t mine, I realised that I hadn’t actually put the pear in. I ordered everybody to stop eating and hastily cut up a pear and dumped bits on everybodys’ plates. Not very elegant, but it had to be done!

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