Salade chevre chaude (warm goat cheese salad) – aka an Accidental Greenmarket Dinner

I love warm goat cheese salads. Luis will attest to this, as he sees more order them in just about every restaurant where they appear on the menu. This obsession started in Paris when we met up for the first time in a year over New Year’s during my Peace Corps stint. Every restaurant had a “salade chevre chaude,” and they were always good. But not only do I order them in restaurants, I regularly make them at home. They’re easy! And fast. And wonderfully tasty. So, the warm goat cheese salad has become a staple in my recipe pantheon.

Since beginning to shop at Greenmarket, and particularly at Lynnhaven’s goat cheese stall, this salad has become even more common in the dinner rotation. We have it at least once a month, often twice (and sometimes once a week if I’m not feeling creative). I swing by the market, grab the cheese and greens, pick up my weekly loaf of whole wheat levain at Our Daily Bread, et voila! dinner.

It’s not that I’m planning to make a dinner of market ingredients (which I’m sure I will make a point of during the summer), it’s just that I can get wonderful cheese, beautiful fresh greens and great bread all in one place. I don’t even think of it as “having a local dinner” until it dawns on me that I happened to get all the major pieces from the market.

Of course, there are caveats. The dressing contains no market ingredients, the cashews also come from far away, and the wine served with dinner, while it may be local, it’s local to my CA hometown, not my current New York residence. As I said, this wasn’t a planned Greenmarket dinner. It just happened that way. And I love it. The fact that I can put most of a meal together from the pieces available at the market makes me smile. No wonder I love working there.

How to? Slice rounds off a log of goat cheese, put on yummy bread and broil until cheese is just melted or bread looks as brown as you want it. Make a mustard vinaigrette: dijon mustard, white wine vinegar (or rice vinegar), olive oil, salt pepper, dill, a little honey if desired. Dress. Cashews and anything else optional.