09.30.07
Warm Cheese Salad
If you can get your hands on some Saint Marcellin cheese, this is a quick and absolutely delicious entrée (meaning first course in French). I discovered this warm cheese salad at a hip little restaurant in Montmartre called Un Zèbre à Montmartre.
The principle is so easy, but one of those things that couldn’t just come to me…and then BAM! How did I ever live without this dish in my rotation?
You just take a round of Saint Marcellin cheese, heat it in the oven until almost completely melting (it’s ok if it leaks a little) and then put it on top of greens in vinaigrette. It’s usually one round per person (if you haven’t seen Saint Marcellin, it’s only about 2 inches or 5 cm in diameter), but it can be a bit much, so we just split one into 2 halves each. Adding extra vinegar to the vinaigrette balances out the strong cheese flavor.
My vinegrific vinaigrette:
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
salt
We used mâche leaves (aka cord salad or lamb’s lettuce) in the pictured version. But we’ve also used roquette (arugula). It’s so easy and a great transitional dish, moving from the fresh summer to the chilly weather we’ll have from here on out.