Serves
4-6
A simple salad to prepare but unusual.
It makes a good side salad for a dish with cheese in it or to simply
accompany cheese and bread. Served very chilled, it makes an appetising
starter. Try it with the new season Italian pears available mid-summer
onwards.
Ingredients
3
ripe but firm sweet pears, peeled, cored; one pear thinly sliced,
the rest diced
½ medium
cucumber, divided in half lengthways, seeds scooped out. Slice ½ of
the cucumber, dice the rest
4 oz/100g black or green seedless grapes, washed
vinaigrette dressing (to taste)
Method
1 Make a bed of
the pear and cucumber slices in a small salad bowl.
2 Put the remaining pear,
cucumber and grapes (reserve 5 or 6 grapes) into a bowl and toss them
in vinaigrette dressing to taste. Pour this mixture over the bed of
pear and cucumber slices.
3 Garnish the salad with
the reserved grapes, chill and serve.
Black grapes are the most impressive
with this salad but they should only be used when you have time to
seed them since to my knowledge there are no seedless black grapes
available. Small green seedless grapes are available very cheaply
from Spain and Cyprus in July and August.
Vinaigrette Dressing
Makes ¼pint / 150ml
Ingredients
4½ floz/120 ml vegetable
oil
2 tbsp/30 ml wine vinegar, cider vinegar or lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
1 tsp/5ml prepared mustard (optional)
Place all ingredients in a bowl or liquidizer
and beat or blend well. Test and adjust seasoning if necessary.
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