Pear and celery salad with blue cheese and walnuts

Nothing tastier, more refreshing or simpler than a pear and celery salad with blue cheese and walnuts. A slightly sour and tangy blue cheese always works well with a sweet, slightly acid, juicy pear. This combination of pear with cheese is fabulous as a salad as with any other type of dish.

Choose a sharp green skinned variety like Conference or a red-skinned type like Red Anjou. Don’t go for overly ripe pears but ones that are just ripe. A really easy salad to make and serve up. A good quality blue cheese such as Stilton or even gorgonzola which is tangy and very strong will work wonders. If you don’t like strong cheese choose a  soft and creamy dolcelatte or cambazola.

Prepare this salad a couple of hours before serving otherwise the pears and cabbage will lose their crispness.

Serves: 4; Preparation time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

For the dressing:

• 2tbsp crème fraiche
• 4tbsp olive oil
• 1tbsp lemon juice
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the salad:

• 2 large ripe pears, halved, cored and sliced
• 150g red or white cabbage, trimmed and shredded
• 2tbsp lemon juice from two lemons
• 2 white-green celery stalks, chopped, along with a handful of celery leaves
• a handful of flat leaf parsley leaves
• 100g mixed salad lettuce and rocket leaves
• 50g walnut halves
• 150g soft blue cheese
• cress to garnish

Preparation:

1. To a large salad bowl, cabbage, celery, celery leaves, parsley and salad leaves.
2. Sprinkle the pear slices with the lemon juice and toss into the salad leaves. 
3. Scatter over the walnuts and crumble over the blue cheese.
4. To make the dressing place the crème fraiche, oil and lemon juice in a bowl and whisk together thoroughly until combined. Season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Pour over the salad and serve immediately.