Second Course: Pear and Pecan Salad
For the next few days, I’m going over a four course meal I made last weekend for an early Valentine’s Day dinner. Any of the courses would be fantastic by themselves. If you missed the Appetizer yesterday, you can check it out here.
If you read, or even browsed, the entire post yesterday on artichoke fritters you may have said, “Man. Those look like a lot of work.” I’m not going to lie to you that they are kind of a lot of work. Especially when you have three other courses to prep!
When planning a menu like this, it is important to balance your dishes not only for flavor, but for prep time as well. If you are making an appetizer that is work intensive, plan a second course that is fairly simple so you can catch up and not lose your mind.
It is key to remember that this should be fun for both of you. Not just the person you are cooking for. That’s why for the second course I made a really simple, but very tasty Pear and Pecan Salad.
Easy salad.
This was a really good winter salad. Not too heavy and the pears really lightened up the dish. I will be making this again for sure. The arugula in this salad is tossed in a quick and easy shallot dressing. Both the dressing and salad were from Tyler’s book, Stirring the Pot.
Quick Shallot Dressing
- 1/2 Cup Crème Fraîche, sour cream, or Greek Yogurt. I used Greek yogurt and it was maybe a bit thick. I think next time I will use something lighter or add more lemon juice.
- 1 Tablespoon Dijon
- 1 chopped Shallot
- 1/2 lemon, juice only
- Pinch sugar
- Salt and pepper
Simple ingredients.
One important step for this dressing is making sure your shallot is chopped as fine as you can get it. Also the more uniform the better. Peel off the skin from the shallot and slice it horizontally and vertically a few times. Leave one edge of the shallot whole. This will keep your sections together.
See what I did there?
Then you just dice it up really fine.
Not as hard as an artichoke.
Then mix this in with all of your other dressing ingredients and you are all set. This dressing is better the longer you let it sit. You can make it a day or two in advance with no worries.
Then get out your greens. I used arugula, but the original recipe called for frisée. As a rule I don’t like using ingredients that have accent marks in the names because it makes it harder to write about them.
I also couldn’t find any at the market.
This is almost too easy.
Toss your greens in a bit of the dressing. Be careful not to add too much dressing. Start with a small amount. Add your pecans on top. Ideally, you would toast them for a few minutes in a 400 degree oven! If you are just making two small plates you will have some dressing left over.
Then add your sliced pear and a few dollops of goat cheese.
I'm clearly not the best at plating.
What’s nice about this is that you can make the dressing the day before and the salad a few hours before and then you have zero work to do on this course when it is time for it.
Be sure to check back tomorrow for the Third Course!
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I usually can’t read food blogs this early in the morning, but this has my mouth watering. That looks fantastic. I’m looking forward to see the rest of the meal.
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Pecan and pear combo sounds wonderful! I am enjoying your menu and looking forward to more courses :)
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Mmmmmmmmmm.. I really must try goat cheese. It’ll be my New Years resolution this year. ;o}
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Dear Citizen,
I find salads often have too much lettuce in them. Look, when I want a salad it’s only because Michelle is making me eat it. It does not satisfy my hunger. It is not the single cure to my rumbling tummy. I can’t tell you how many times my fellow Democrats have made salads for me and I had to go back and ask them, “Where’s the meat?” Stuff that salad with as much meat as you can! I’m talking ham, bacon, spare rib. Lean is not the way to go people!
My fellow Americans, our salad crisis will not fix itself. It needs our help. We need to tell our french-trained chefs, pork up my salad or go back to your backwater socialist nation! God bless you all and God bless America.
B. Obama, Esq.
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I agree with Mr. Obama, throw some ribs on there! ;-)
Actually, your salad sounds great!
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I have an idea, why don’t you come over to my place on Valentine’s Day and cook me dinner? I’ll give you a tour of the farmers market ;)
Also, I would have thought Obama was too busy these days to complain about salads in blogs. Go figure.
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