warm grilled peach and frisée salad with goat’s cheese dressing

method

I love this salad – it’s so simple. It’s based on one that was cooked for me by the brilliant Jean-Georges Vongerichten at his New York restaurant, Perry Street. The flavor and juicy sweetness you get from a grilled ripe peach, or pear for that matter, served bravely and simply next to a crunchy single leaf salad of frisée or curly endive, are perfection. Especially with the creamy dressing. You might feel as if you’re being a little bit wasteful when you’re preparing this lettuce because the key to making it successfully is to remove and discard all the dark green, ridiculously bitter outer leaves of the lettuces, as you only want to use the sweet, white, crunchy inner leaves.

To make your dressing, put the goat’s cheese in a pestle and mortar with a little salt and pepper. (Goat’s cheese is salty anyway, so go easy on the salt.) Add the olive oil and lemon juice and mix up. Add the walnut oil and the Parmesan and mix again, but not for too long or it will split.

Put your peaches, cut-side down, on to a white-hot griddle pan and char them nicely on both sides. Remove and put on a large platter or divide between four plates. Drizzle the peaches with a little olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Put your frisée or endive leaves into a bowl with enough of your goat’s cheese dressing to coat the leaves, and toss together gently and beautifully. Grate a little Parmesan over the dressed salad and put a pile of it on each plate, next to the peach halves. Scatter over some baby mint leaves. A genius, simple combo!

PS Some warmed, crumbly walnuts would be delicious sprinkled over the top. Also a plate of Parma ham, Spanish serrano ham or speck would be great to serve next to this salad.

serves: 4

ingredients

• for the goat’s cheese dressing
21⁄2oz crumbly goat’s cheese
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
juice of 1 lemon
• 1 tablespoon walnut oil
• 1oz Parmesan cheese,
freshly grated
• 2 large ripe peaches, halved and pits removed
extra virgin olive oil sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 frisée or endive lettuces,
dark outer leaves discarded, inner leaves washed and dried freshly grated Parmesan cheese
a small bunch of fresh mint, smallest leaves picked