Talk of Tomatoes | Walnut Pear Endive Salad

Walnut Pear Endive Salad

It is amazing to me that I haven’t yet shared this salad with you. Don’t you love unusual salads? Don’t you get a smidgen tired of serving the same salad over and over? How about when you look in your fridge and the green leaves shout out little to no inspiration?

I am always so happy to have a few good salad options. What to serve guests to tickle their palate, what salads make me come back for seconds, or cause me to skip dessert altogether. Salads that skip being a side and go straight to the center. This is one of those salads.

You grow up eating greens, you regularly serve the same leafy greens, your friends eat greens and so when you present an endive laden salad people are inevitably, wonderfully impressed. Then they taste it, and they too, opt to eat more salad and wave off dessert.

Other favorite salads of mine include pecan blue cheese and sizzling goat cheese. For a twist, you can insert lightly sugared walnuts in place of the toasted walnuts.

Walnut Pear Endive Salad
5 heads endive
1 cup walnut halves
3 T champagne vinegar
2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 room temperature egg yolk
KS&CP (kosher salt & coarse pepper)
1/2 cup plus 2 T olive oil
6 oz blue cheese crumbles
1 red pear, thinly sliced

Cut off end of each endive, separating leaves. Toss in bowl. Toast walnuts in skillet over medium until fragrant. Place vinegar, dijon, yolk, KS&CP and olive oil in JAR: Shake it all about. Combine dressing with endive leaves, add cheese, walnuts and pears on top or to blend.

button print grnw20 Walnut Pear Endive Salad

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Karin said (12 June 2007 at 8:24 am):

Does anyone else feel uneasy about using raw egg in the dressing? It always makes me queasy to see raw egg used in any recipe. This salad looks great…but I’m skipping the egg yolk in the dressing recipe…I don’t think I’ll be missing much!

brilynn said (12 June 2007 at 9:13 am):

I love this combo! And as long as the eggs are fresh, I’m not overly concerned… I eat enough raw cookie dough that I’m sure I’ve eaten tons of yolks in my day.

Lydia said (13 June 2007 at 4:40 am):

Last summer a friend served huge platters of this salad, with the sugared walnuts, for the appetizer at an outdoor luncheon. Though we were sitting in her backyard, we all felt as though we were in the French countryside! Very elegant and delicious, this salad.