Put together by Colm in our New Antrim St. cafe, this salad was a starter option for our Mother’s day menu. He used the wonderful St Tola original log for this recipe. Siobhan and the team at St Tola make a wonderful range of Goat’s cheese from their farm in Inagh, County Clare. If you’d rather avoid the process of whipping the cheese, you could also use a lighter variety such as their tubs of St Tola ‘DIVINE’ which is a much lighter, curd-style variety. Of course, feel free to use other Irish Goat’s cheese such as the cheese from Galway Goat’s farm. We stock all these varieties in our shop on Spencer St.
You’ll be spoilt for choice with greens in the coming weeks, and we managed to get some lovely purple sprouting broccoli from the crew at Glasraí, but a stem broccoli would also work as well. Good quality asparagus will be available around May, and also works well for the salad.
Chargrilled Greens and ‘whipped’ St Tola Goat’s Cheese salad with Romesco
Serves 2 as a main, or 4 for a starter
Ingredients
For the Romesco sauce
- 100g roasted walnuts
- 4 red peppers roasted, skins removed
- ½ teaspoon of chopped garlic
- 1 dessert spoon sherry vinegar
- Olive oil to loosen
- Salt
- Whipped goats
- 200g Irish goat’s cheese
- 70 ml cream
- Greens (Stem Brocolli, PSB or asparagus all work well)
Method
- Roast and skin your peppers.
- Reserve the oil, and blitz all other ingredients in a food processor or with a mortar and pestle. With the blade running, add some olive oil to loosen the mix. The sauce will keep well in your fridge covered for up to a week.
- Whip the goat’s cheese and cream in a processor on high speed until smooth (30-45 seconds). Do not over whip it will become grainy
- Blanch or steam your greens for 2 minutes and then chill immediately by placing in a bowl of iced or cold water.Drain and reserve
- Get your chargrill up to temp
- Put a small amount of olive oil onto your vegetables and toss to coat them( it’s very important not to oil the grill pan as it will end up frying the veg rather than charring them)
- Place your vegetables on the hot chargrill for 1 minute on either side
- Remove the vegetables and lightly season with salt
Assemble your salad and serve with some nice bread and something lovely to drink.