Warm Salad of Cashel Blue Cheese with Gubbeen Bacon & Spiced Cranberries

This is a simple little salad suitable as a light lunch / supper dish or as a starter course. The Cashel blue cheese can be replaced with another good blue cheese of your choice, or Gubbeen cheese, cut into small dice. The quality of the bacon used is very important and I recommend Fingal Fergusons bacon from Schull in West Cork. Fingal also produces wonderful Chorizos and Salamis.

Serves 4

4oz/110g Chashel blue cheese, crumbled, or Gubbeen cheese, rind removed and cut into 1/2 inch / 1 cm dice.

4oz/110g Gubbeen streaky bacon, cut into small lardons.

4 handfuls of organic greens

2 tablespoons of spiced cranberries

1 tablespoon of olive oil

For the Dressing:

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 tablespoons sunflower oil

1 tablespoon white wine vinegar

1/2 teaspoon of mustard

Salt, black pepper

1 teaspoon of honey

METHOD

Place the washed leaves in a large bowl. Mix all the ingredients for the dressing together, whisk well to blend and season to taste.

Heat a small frying pan and add the olive oil. When the oil is hot, add the lardons of bacon and cook until golden brown and slightly crispy. While the bacon is cooking, toss the greens in enough dressing to make the leaves glisten and place on a large hot serving dish or four individual hot plates.

Drizzle some of the cranberries and their juice around the salads. Crumble a little cheese on top of the dressed greens. Finally sprinkle the hot and crispy lardons of bacon over the leaves and serve immediately.

And for the Spiced Cranberries This is a great little relish which keeps for weeks in the fridge. I serve it with bacon, ham and pork. It is also good with pates and terrines. At Christmas I serve it with Turkey and also with spiced beef. Allow the berries to burst in the cooking or they will be too bitter and not take on the flavours of the spices. Little jars of the spiced berries make a simple and much enjoyed gift. But now, it is for the warm salad – just like the one I’m holding in the photograph above.

l lb/450g cranberries, fresh or frozen

1lb/450g sugar

8 fl.oz./250 ml water

4 fl.oz./125 ml white wine vinegar

1/2 stick cinnamon

1 star anise

4 cloves

2 pieces of fresh ginger, peeled and thinckly sliced

1 red or green chilli, split and seeded

Stick the whole cloves into the sliced ginger. Place the sugar, water and vinegar in a small, non reactive saucepan. Add all the spices and chilli and bring slowly to the boil. Add the cranberries and simmer gently until the fruit becomes tender and bursts, this takes only about 8 minutes. The cloves, ginger, chilli etc can be picked out at the end. I usually leave them in just for visual effect. Allow to cool and store in the fridge.

Rory O’Connell has worked with some of the world’s great chefs including Nico Ladenis of Chez Nico in London, Alice Waters of Chez Panisse and Raymond Blanc. After 10 years as head chef of Ballymaloe House, Rory set up a cookery school at his home, Snugboro – a stunning 18th century Palladian farmhouse near Shanagarry, in east Cork. Rory also teaches at the Ballymaloe Cookery School. In his own school, he teaches half day or full day courses to small groups (up to 12 people) – the day begins with coffee and homemade cookies and ends with an amazing meal and lots of fun inbetween.