Dinner Salad and Burrata


On a night when you don’t want to have a heavy dinner, you should read this post.  I made a spinach, beet, and broiled pear salad and joined it with some Burrata cheese, jam, and crackers.  Sounds simple, yes, but the flavors were really amazing.  Not your average salad with cheese and crackers.

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Start by slicing up a few pears and placing them on a sprayed baking sheet.

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I wanted the pear to be up a notch, a little more than just sliced pears on a salad.  I sprinkled them with a little bit of brown sugar and placed them under the broiler for 6-7 minutes. (The picture below will show how much brown sugar I used, it is a pre-broiling shot)

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Place a bed of spinach on your plate and slice up some roasted beets.  I used the classic red beets from the share and a golden beet I had from my neighbor.  Already it’s a beautiful plate!

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Place the broiled pears on your salad and swirl of balsamic glaze and you have a very attractive salad, put together in no time at all.

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Now, to elevate the dish even more, let’s talk about the amazing cheese we got in this past share.  I used up my ricotta and now my burrata, both were so smooth and decadent!  I so love cheese.  Strain out the water and here is the burrata:

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You have to be careful with burrata, it is pretty delicate.  Burrata actually means buttered, which is rightly named.  It has a solid outside “shell” made from mozzarella while the inside is filled with soft, stringy curd and fresh cream.  It is so soft and luxurious.

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The soft cheese is inside the pouch so if you cut the cheese in half, all of the goodness oozes out.  I like to slice the top off of mine, similar to a bread bowl.  This keeps the outer shell in place and exposes the inner goodness, you can scoop it out with a spoon and place in on a cracker with jam.  That’s exactly what we did!

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However you choose to eat your burrata, you are in for a treat.  

Tonight was a casual, light dinner but it packed huge flavor and textures.  Enjoy!

 


About Sarah

Sarah is a trained chef and owner of Whisk Baked Goods. She lives in Chelmsford with her husband and two active boys. Sarah is passionate about food, loves eating local, and cooking gluten free foods.