Sorry I’ve been quiet for a little while here. Last week was a little crazy with work, and then I got sick with the flu on the weekend. Oh the flu, how I loathe the flu. Argh!
Anyway, just before I got the flu, I did keep my promise to myself on my weekly cooking challenge of making a new dish. I tried a pear and avocado salad with garam masala syrup. The name of the salad threw me off because it sounded so odd. I mean, I understand using garam masala in cooking meat dishes. But in a salad? Really?
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This recipe came from Epicurious, cut-and-pasted here:
- 2 cups water
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 (2-inch-long) piece cinnamon stick
- 2 (1- by 1/4-inch) pieces fresh ginger, smashed
- 2 teaspoons green or white cardamom pods, lightly crushed
- 2 teaspoons coriander seeds, lightly crushed
- 10 whole black peppercorns, lightly crushed
- 1/4 teaspoon dried hot red pepper flakes
For salad
- 1/4 cup raw green (hulled) pumpkin seeds (not roasted)
- 2 firm-ripe California avocados (1 to 1 1/4 lb)
- 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
- 2 Asian pears (1 lb total)
- 4 oz mixed microgreens or baby greens (4 cups)
Make syrup:
Bring all syrup ingredients to a boil in a 1-quart heavy saucepan, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Reduce heat and simmer until syrup is reduced to about 1/2 cup, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat and let steep, covered, 1 hour. Pour syrup through a sieve into a bowl, discarding solids.
Prepare salad:
Heat a dry heavy 10-inch skillet over moderate heat until hot, then toast pumpkin seeds, stirring constantly, until puffed and beginning to pop, 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer seeds to a plate and season with salt.
Halve, pit, and peel avocados, then thinly slice lengthwise. Gently toss slices with 2 tablespoons lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste, then gently toss with 1/4 cup syrup.
Halve pears and core, then thinly slice lengthwise. Toss pear slices with remaining 2 tablespoons lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste. Stir in remaining 1/4 cup syrup.
Drain pears, reserving syrup, and arrange slices on 4 plates. Transfer avocado slices to plates with a slotted spoon, discarding syrup. Toss greens with reserved syrup from pears and salt and pepper to taste. Mound greens next to avocado and pear slices and sprinkle with pumpkin seeds.
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The recipe says to use 2 cups of water, but I don’t find that necessary. 1 1/2 cup was plenty and it took long enough to reduce it down. I wouldn’t suggest using 2 cups of water.
I didn’t have pumpkin seeds, so I didn’t put those on. I think it would have been good with some pumpkin seeds or maybe toasted cashew nuts. And I didn’t use asian pears, as I had some Bartlett pears on hand at the perfect ripeness. I don’t think using Bartlett was a distraction from the salad.
Now, the real star of the show, of course, is the garam masala syrup. Oh yeah, that was one very interesting dressing! The guinea pigs I made the salad for all agreed that the dressing was interesting, and took a little bit of getting used to. But at the end everyone decided that they liked it. The ginger flavor really came through, but you can also tell there are a lot of other flavors working their magic together.
My favorite part of this recipe was making the garam masala syrup. Cliff gave me a mortar and pestle set for Christmas 2 years ago, and I love every chance I get to use it. I used it to crush up the peppercorn, cardamom pods, and coriander seeds. All the spices, ginger, sugar, gets boiled and reduced down to a thick and golden colored syrup. It is spicy, sweet, tangy, and just…interesting!
This is something that doesn’t take a lot of effort, especially when my box of “exotic spices” are properly stocked on my shelf, but gives an interesting twist to a regular dinner. Two thumbs up!
Sorry, no pictures of the final salad. I was so excited to eat it that I forgot to take pictures of the salad.
