Radicchio + Pear Salad

Since I travel so much for most of the year, I truly appreciate these days in January and February when I basically only leave the house to take a walk or go to the market. I get so much work done in my office, without any distractions. I also love my solitary lunches where I get to eat exactly what I feel like. And most days it’s a salad. Fennel and Orange is on constant repeat. But when I’m craving something leafier and slightly bitter, I turn to Radicchio and Pear salad.

This is barely a recipe, but since so many people were intrigued by my lunch the other day, which I posted on Instagram, I thought it was worth laying out the basic guidelines here. Because I can’t in full honesty call this a ‘recipe.’

Some things to keep in mind when making this salad:

• Use the long leafed radicchio, called Treviso. Yes, it’s usually more expensive, but that’s because it’s slightly sweeter and a lot more tender than those hard balls of Radicchio di Chioggia
• I always add fruit of some kind. Pear is great, but apple or even oranges work too.
• I usually add some sort of dried fruit or nuts as well, since they pair so nicely with the bitter leaves. This time around I used dates, but I often use raisins and chopped hazelnuts, or walnuts
• The other day I added a handful of grated ricotta salata which I had never done before. The reason was that I was really hungry, and thought the salad needed more heft. It turned out to be quite a delicious heft. Other cheeses that work perfectly here are gorgonzola or crumbly goat cheese.

A few words about dressing. If you’re the kind of person who wants a true recipe for salad dressing you can see this post for Balsamic Honey Dressing.. But if you want to wing it, like I always do, here is some advice. When making radicchio salad this is one of the few times I used balsamico. I use Aceto Balsamico di Modena, which is not the super expenive version (here is my podcast which talks about that). But I do use a high quality one. This bottle happened to be from Massimo Bottura and was excellent. I also used a wonderful sweet honey vinegar that I picked up at my farmer’s market. Feel free to play around with the vinegars. I used extra virgin olive oil, but not the extra special just pressed one, since that would have been overwhelmed by the balsamic. Just your ordinary every day one will do fine. Then salt and pepper of course.

Let me know  if you make some version of this salad. Take a picture of your radicchio salad and tag me @eminchilli on Instagram and I’ll share it!