Ham Hock & Pear Salad

A few weeks ago I enjoyed a lovely, light lunch at Dax Cafe Bar. This is definitely one of my favourite spots for lunch when I'm working in town. It's a slice of Gallic heaven, serving great French-inspired dishes in a beautiful club-style room. I love their salads which usually feature just a handful of ingredients, but are executed really well with good textures and flavours. (Dax Cafe Bar is also open in the evenings, serving a range of "tapas" and other dishes. You can read more about it on one of my earlier reviews).

Tonight, we were cooking slow braised beef cheeks for dinner. These take time to cook, and I wanted to make a quick starter or salad dish as we waited for the magic to happen in the oven. Earlier in the day, I had visited the wonderful Byrnes Butchers on North Circular Road in Phibsborough, where I had purchased a smoked ham hock. My plan had been to put this in the fridge for snackage, but I decided to use it in a Dax-inspired salad. I simply tore at the ham hock until I had a pile of shreds. The different sizes and rough textures keeps the salad looking rustic and simple. I added some carmelised pear slices for a touch of sweetness against the mustard vinaigrette.

Smoked ham hock & pear salad

Ingredients

4-5 slices of pear, cored

Knob of butter

Olive oil

Cider vinegar (or white wine vinegar)

Strong mustard

Lamb's lettuce, or leaves of your choice

Shredded cooked ham

Salt & pepper to taste

Start by heating a pan over a medium to high heat and melt the butter. Place the pear slices in the pan, and cook for several minutes on either side, or until golden and carmelised. You need the heat to be above medium in order to get the sugars to carmelise, but make sure not to burn the butter. 

Once happy with the pear slices, carefully remove from the pan, and place on some kitchen paper to drain off some of the butter.

To make the vinaigrette, combine olive oil, vinegar and some mustard in a bowl until blended. I'm deliberately not recommending quantities here, as everyone has different taste when it comes to dressing strength. Personally, I like my dressings to be really punchy, with lots of mustard flavour.

Arrange the lamb's lettuce on a plate and spoon over several teaspoons of the dressing. Place the ham shreds and pear slices on top, and finish with a little salt & pepper.

Once I had the salad ready, I took some quick photos. Later as I looked at them on the laptop, I was struck by the beautiful colours and textures. So here's a close-up from one of the shots for you to enjoy!

Close up of smoked ham hock & pear salad

Grilled Halloumi & Slow-Roast Tomato Salad

It's been a beautiful bank holiday weekend here in Dublin, and my household (all two of us) has been very inspired by all the lovely food we've been seeing and tasting lately. Today's supper snack was a perfect example of how to use ingredients that you may have lying around in your fridge. In our case, it involved some halloumi cheese, rocket, some vine-ripened cherry tomatoes and a yellow pepper.

Slow-roasted tomatoes

Last night, we slow-roasted some lovely large cherry tomatoes. This inolved halving the tomatoes, drizzling them with some olive oil, sea salt & black pepper. For a little extra flavour, some freshly ground fennel seeds were sprinkled on about half of the tomatoes. These were then placed in a pre-heated, low oven (about 100 - 120 Celsius) for about an hour, or until they had shrunk and somewhat resembled sun-dried tomatoes. The end result is a wonderful, condensed blast of tomato flavour that you can keep in your fridge for a few days. They make wonderful additions to salads, cheeseboards or fancy sandwiches. 

Grilled halloumi salad

Grilled halloumi is a really fantastic starter dish. I prefer to fry it (rather than grill) as I feel that the improved heat distribution from frying results in a better texture. However, the choice is entirely yours.

Warm up a heavy pan (cast-iron skillet in this case). From a block of halloumi, cut slices that are about 3-5mm in thickness. Drizzle a little olive oil on the slices, and fry in the pan until both sides are golden and the cheese has melted slightly. Remove from the pan and rest on some kitchen paper for a minute.

Serve with a green salad of your choice. In the picture below, we used rocket leaves, a mix of fresh and slow-roasted cherry tomatoes and some thin slivers of yellow pepper. This was dressed with some olive oil and a small dash of balsamic glaze.