Kaas en noten salade

{Subtitle}

Name	Kaas en noten salade (Cheese and nut salad)
Origin	Our own minds. Since these minds are Dutch, it presumably is a Dutch recipe. We've never had it in the Netherlands, though.
Type	Side dish or light lunch.
Cooks	Anne-Wil Harzing and Ron van der Wal.
Notes	Suitable for vegetarians, unless you are a lacto vegetarian (contains cheese). Contains nuts.
Trivia	We started dry-roasting the nuts because the ones we had were smelling rather stuffy. It turned out to be a good move.

Ingredients (serves 4-6 as a side dish)

Iceberg salad (1 crop)
300 g mixed nuts (e.g., Brazil nuts, almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts — readily available from supermarkets and some greengrocers)
100 g sunflower seeds
150 g blue cheese (we use Danish Blue, but Blue Stilton or Roquefort are good alternatives)
150 g yellow cheese (for example mild Cheddar or Gouda)
Optional: fresh herbs, for instance basil, coriander, thyme, etc. (readily available in most supermarkets)
Optional: a red and a yellow pepper (i.e. paprika, not chilli pepper) to add a bit of extra color to the salad

Preparation

Chop the mixed nuts down to a reasonable size (not powder, but don't leave whole Brazil nuts either).
Using a frying pan, preferably one with a Teflon® coating, slowly roast the nuts and the sunflower seeds. Don't use oil to do so, but apply a low to moderate fire. It should take 10 minutes or so — longer rather than shorter, because you don't want the nuts to get burned and bitter-tasting. Stir the nuts from time to time.
Meanwhile, cut the Iceberg salad (for example, by first cutting "slices", then cutting the slices into smaller pieces).
If you use the optional herbs, chop or cut them.
If you use the optional peppers, remove their stems and seeds, then chop them into reasonably-sized pieces.
Cut the cheeses into small blocks (say, 0.5 cm cubes) — the blue cheese in particular may turn out to be a bit crumbly.
When the nuts are ready, mix all ingredients in a bowl and serve.


	Copyright © 1999-2000 Anne-Wil Harzing and Ron van der Wal. All rights reserved. Legal notices and colophon. This page was last modified on 7-11-99 19:03