Peace and Love in the Kitchen

Serves 4-6

Arugula is a green with an intense peppery flavor.  You can cook it, but mostly, people eat arugula raw as a salad.  Although it is often combined with milder-tasting salad greens in a mesclun mix, it makes a fantastic salad on its own.  The young leaves, sold as “baby arugula”, are small and tender.  Their taste is mild, but still have that sharp bite that people have grown to love.  Its flavor goes well with many things but especially salty cheese and bold vinegar.

This salad combines baby arugula with nuts, parmesan cheese, dried cranberries, and a vinaigrette made with sherry vinegar.  Each bite is salty, earthy, and sweet; a very appetizing combination.  In the colorless season of winter, a bowl of bright green arugula with bright red cranberries is also pleasing to the eye.

Peppery arugula goes well with a salty cheese like parmesan, feta, or pecorino and the assertive taste of sherry vinegar.  Here, the sweetness from dried cranberries adds sweet to the salty.

8-10 cups baby arugula, washed and dried

salt

3 tsp red wine vinegar

3 tsp sherry winegar

salt and pepper

4-6 Tbsps extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup pecans, chopped and lightly toasted

1/2 cup dried cranberries

1/2 – 3/4 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

1.  TOSS:  Place arugula in a large serving bowl and sprinkle with salt.  In a small bowl, mix vinegars with salt and pepper to taste. Whisk in 3 Tbsp. of the oil.  Taste.  Add more oil if needed. Pour enough vinaigrette over the arugula so that when it is tossed, the leaves are just wet.  You don’t want the leaves moist, not dripping wet.

2.  ADD CHEESE AND NUTS:  Add the cheese, pecans, and cranberries; toss again; and serve.

Peace and love from my kitchen to yours,

Waverly

Tags:

• SALAD
• WINTER

1 comment

http://www.peaceandloveinthekitchen.com/2011/01/color-in-a-cold-weather-salad-arugula-with-parmesan-pecans-and-cranberries

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