Chicory-Endive Roquefort and Walnut Salad

French Tart's Note:

We often eat this simple salad for lunch, only accompanied by crusty French baguette and a glass of wine! Feel free to substitute the Roquefort for a blue cheese that is readily available where you live; it is also superb with Stilton & Shropshire Blue cheese. I have served this as a dinner party starter & also in place of a "just" cheese course as well! If you cannot obtain walnut oil, any other nut oil will be fine, or a good olive oil. This recipe serves 6 people for a light luncheon or 8-10 people as a dinner party starter.

• Total Time: 10 mins
• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 0 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

SALAD

• 3 heads chicory lettuce or 3 heads endive, washed & the bottom root cut off
• 6 ounces Roquefort cheese or 6 ounces blue cheese, of your choice
• 4 ounces toasted fresh walnut pieces

DRESSING

• 1 tablespoon walnut oil or 1 tablespoon nut oil, of your choice
• 3 tablespoons sunflower oil
• 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
• 4 tablespoons walnut vinegar or 4 tablespoons white wine vinegar
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 lemon, juice of
• salt & freshly ground black pepper

Directions:

1. To make the dressing whisk the two oils, mustard, vinegar, sugar & lemon juice together well.
2. Season well with freshly ground black pepper & a touch of salt, the blue cheese is quite salty already.
3. Keep the dressing at room temperature until serving. The dressing can be made up to 1 week ahead of time.
4. To toast the walnuts, heat up a roomy frying pan over a high heat & add the walnuts. Pan-toast them for about 5-10 minutes, stirring around constantly until they are a deep golden colour but NOT dark brown or burnt! (You must keep an eye on them at all times.).
5. Take off the heat & cool.
6. Wash or wipe the chicory heads and cut 1" to 2" off the base of each one.
7. Separate the leaves gently and wash again if necessary.
8. Place the leaves into an attractive flat dish or on to a serving platter.
9. Crumble over the blue cheese & pour over the dressing.
10. Scatter the toasted walnuts over the top & serve immediately with crusty bread.

Reviews

[Cookgirl]

To pump in some color for the picture of the salad I took, I added edible flowers and purple cauliflower primarily because I couldn't find purple-red hued endive, only the standard green. Local Oregon produce was used in this salad-almost exclusively except for the walnuts and endive from Cali. The bleu cheese was from Oregon's Rogue Creamery: award winning 'Crater Lake Bleu'. Delicious combination of flavors. I especially like the walnut oil in the dressing. I chopped rather than separated the endive leaves and added baby spinach and mixed greens to balance the peppery bite of endive. Made for Father's Day. Thank for posting the recipe. cg ;)

[Zurie]

I was pleased to come across this simple but gourmet recipe!! My husband loves endive (so do I) but I don't always know how to ring the changes. It's also always expensive here, so one wants to use it to best advantage. I didn't change much, except make less of it, as we are only two! And I used apple cider vinegar. As luck would have it, I did have a half-used small bottle of walnut oil. I used a South African blue cheese, but one which we think is superb. A very successful salad, and so simple! Merci beaucoup, madame FT!

[Kris #4]

I love this salad and make it often. I didn't have walnut oil when making it the fist time - so substituted lemon-infused olive oil and that is delicious with the lemon juice - very bright. I also substituted white balsamic vinegar. It gets great reviews whenever served. I use it both as a salad and as an appetizer.