Fall is in the air, also known as Gumbo weather, (and FYI, Duck and Sausage Gumbo will be posted next week), and what goes better with gumbo than a spinach salad with blue cheese and pear? Especially when the salad has a rich walnut oil vinaigrette with honey and Dijon mustard and topped with some fresh juicy pomegranate seeds.
The Dressing
This is a fall dressing for a fall salad. The toasted walnut oil adds a richness that’s accented by the honey and mustard. This recipe doesn’t make a large amount of dressing but it’s plenty for this amount of greens which will serve four. It should be drizzled over sparingly and should accent the ingredients not overwhelm them.
The Salad
You may use baby spinach for this but curly is more robust, more attractive, and lasts longer without wilting if you make it ahead of time or have leftovers. If you do buy it by the bunch make sure it’s well washed to avoid the sandy crunch of unwanted soil. You’ll want the onion sliced thinly and the pear in small bite-sized chunks. As for the cheese, it can be any blue cheese, Maytag, Gorgonzola, Stilton whatever, and you can cut it up but most blue cheeses crumble nicely and that’s what I did here.
The Pomegranate
Easy to seed if you follow a few simple steps:
- score around the root end where the flower was. Don’t cut all the way through, just enough to pry the top off with your fingers.
- next, you will find the white inner membranes and follow their outline and score all the way down the outside of the pomegranate. This should allow you to gently pull it apart.
- Once it’s divided in two, pry the seeds out and discard the white papery membrane.
And that’s it! Just toss, dress and enjoy with something filling like my Shrimp Stuffed Bell Peppers or Shrimp Etouffee.
- For the dressing:
- 1 tablespoon red balsamic vinegar
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 1 clove garlic, crushed
- 3 tablespoons toasted walnut oil (or other oil)
- ½ teaspoon Dijon mustard
- ½ teaspoon honey
- For the salad:
- 1 bunch of curly spinach
- Blue Cheese (any kind)
- ½ medium red onion
- 1 red pear
- Pomegranate seeds for garnish
- For the dressing:
- Dissolve the salt and pepper in the vinegar then add the crushed garlic clove and let it infuse while you make the salad.
- Whisk in the oil, mustard, and honey, remove the garlic, and sparingly apply to the salad.
- For the salad:
- Wash and carefully dry the spinach then tear it into pieces by hand.
- Crumble or cut the cheese into bite-sized chunks.
- Thinly slice the red onion.
- Quarter and core the pear and slice into one inch chunks.
- Garnish with pomegranate seeds.