My favorite salads all have the same components: a tender lettuce, a crunchier lettuce, chopped nuts, creamy cheese, something sweet and a tangy vinaigrette. If you follow this general rule of thumb, you can mix-and-match ingredients you have on hand to create unique salads that your dinner guests are sure to love! For this salad I combined peppery watercress and crispy chopped Belgian endive with creamy goat cheese crumbles, sliced dried apricots, Nicoise olives, chopped almonds and a Dijon vinaigrette. Any oil-cured black olive would work well here, but I love the rich, almost sweet taste of Nicoise olives if you can find them. A nice substitute for the dried apricots would also be segments of juicy navel oranges if you have those in the kitchen.
(To view this recipe, click on the blue title of the blog post above*)
Endive & Watercress Salad with Dried Apricots, Olives & Goat Cheese
Ingredients:
- 2 heads of Belgian endive, outside leaves removed, root end trimmed, rest of the endive sliced
- 4 cups watercress
- dried apricots, sliced
- crumbled goat cheese
- chopped almonds
- Nicoise olives
- For the vinaigrette:
- 1 Tablespoon Dijon mustard
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 1/4 cup white wine or champagne vinegar
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil
- pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
Directions:
- Toss the salad ingredients together on a serving plate. Whisk the vinaigrette ingredients together until smooth—drizzle over the salad and serve.
Tagged: almonds, apricots, Belgian endive, black olives, crumbled goat cheese, Dijon vinaigrette, dried apricots, endive, goat cheese, Nicoise olives, Salad, watercress
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