Name: Salade de Chèvre Chaud
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 8 min
Total time: 23 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 1 goat cheese log with rind, about 200 g, cut into 8 rounds; 8 slices baguette, 1.5 cm thick; 2 tbsp olive oil; 2 tbsp runny honey; 1 tsp thyme leaves; 150 g mixed bitter leaves; 80 g walnuts, toasted and broken; 1 apple or pear, thinly sliced; 1 tbsp Dijon mustard; 2 tbsp red wine vinegar; 5 tbsp walnut or olive oil; 1 tsp honey; ½ tsp fine sea salt; Black pepper

Salade de Chèvre Chaud

Rounds of goat cheese on toast, grilled until the surface blisters and the centre slumps, dropped onto dressed leaves. A French café lunch that takes eight minutes.

23 min total Serves 4 servings Easy

Salade de Chèvre Chaud, in preparation
Photograph credit: Bistrot de pays à Caseneuve salade de chèvre chaud à la tapenade et aux aubergines by vpagnouf · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Wikimedia Commons · this resized copy is shared under the same licence

The Method for Salade de Chèvre Chaud

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Heat the grill to its highest setting.
Brush the baguette slices with olive oil on both sides and toast them under the grill for 90 seconds a side until golden and dry.
Whisk the dressing ingredients until emulsified. Taste — it should be sharper than seems comfortable, as the cheese will soften it.
Toss the leaves, walnuts and apple with just enough dressing to coat, and divide between plates.
Set a round of goat cheese on each toast, drizzle with honey and scatter with thyme.
Grill 3 to 4 minutes, watching closely, until the surface blisters and browns and the centre begins to slump.
Do not let them melt through — the cheese should hold its shape on the toast.
Lift two toasts onto each plate of dressed leaves.
Grind over black pepper and serve immediately, while the cheese is still soft.

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Things to Watch For

Use a rinded log. Rindless goat cheese slides off the toast and through the grill rack.
Dress the leaves first, then add the toasts. The other way round gives you a warm, wilted salad.
Stand and watch it. Three minutes is right and five is a puddle.

A Little Background

A log-shaped goat cheese with a rind holds its shape under the grill where a soft, rindless cheese collapses through the toast. Dressing the leaves before the toasts land keeps them crisp — hot cheese on undressed leaves steams them flat.

On the Table Alongside

A Sancerre or other crisp Loire white · Crusty bread · A café lunch, with nothing after it

Storing Leftovers

Assemble and eat immediately. The dressing keeps a week refrigerated.

Nutrition per Serving

No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (some ingredient lines cannot be read). Why some recipes have none.

Vegetarian