Plum, pear, fig, hazelnut, lovage and goat’s cheese salad

Plum, pear, fig, hazelnut, lovage and goat’s cheese salad

Autumn

I have plums growing here at home and I have pears, but sadly, I don’t have figs, so this salad started out life without them. The night before we took this picture, a friend gave me a brown paper bag full of soft, dusky-blue figs they’d grown on the wall of their house. I knew I had to use some in this recipe, and I’m so pleased I did. Can you miss something before you’ve ever had it? I think you can.

Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 12 ripe plums, halved and stoned
  • 2 ripe pears, peeled, cored and quartered
  • 2–3 ripe figs, quartered top to bottom
  • a small handful of lovage, leaves picked and roughly chopped
  • 100g (3½oz) soft goat’s cheese
  • 50g (1¾oz) toasted hazelnuts, crushed

For the dressing

  • 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
  • 1 tablespoon runny honey
  • sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Cut the plum halves in half again and place them in a bowl. Cut each pear quarter into bitesize pieces and combine them with the plums. Add the fig quarters.

Combine all the ingredients for the dressing in a small bowl or jam jar and stir well or shake together. Season with salt and pepper. Trickle half the dressing over the plums, pears and figs and jumble everything together. Add the lovage and turn everything together.

Spoon out the salad onto a serving platter, then crumble over the soft goat’s cheese and add the crushed hazelnuts. Finish the salad by spooning over the remaining dressing. Serve at once.

Back to Membership