Refreshing Sweet-n-Sour Frisée Salad

In fact, a full name would run as frisée salad with blood oranges, grongonzola and toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds with lavender and lemon dressing. Quite a long name for a dish, huh? When you reach the end, you’ve already forgot the beginning. I see why people love to give short names to dishes, like Caesar salad, Beef Wellington, Jambalaya, Borsch, Po Boy sandwich, Pho. Life is too short to waste it reading long dish names - you better spend your precious time eating.

Here’s my recent favorite combo of ingredients for a simple green salad. A head of frisée salad, torn into bite-size pieces, washed and thoroughly spin-dried, is gently tossed with a sweet and sour dressing, made of lemon juice, lavender infused honey and olive oil (2:1:1). On top I put several peeled and sliced blood oranges (regular oranges will work as well). I broke a small chunk of gorgonzola cheese with my fingers and sprinkle it on top of the salad together with a generous pinch of warm toasted pumpkin or sunflower seeds. Another light drizzle of the dressing over the top and voila!

This salad goes great with roasted, grilled or sautéed white fish like halibut, corvina or ling cod. My next choice would be grilled or roasted lamb ribs.

For lavender infused honey, take 1 cup of light, neutral tasting honey. In a small ramekin, soak heaping ½ teaspoon of dried lavender flowers in 1 tablespoon of boiling water for 7-10 minutes. Strain and stir into the honey.