It looks like we’re in full-on spring in COMO! There’s the roller-coaster weather that we’re famous for, but hopefully we are done with the seriously cold temps until October. A true gem of mid-MO, the Columbia Farmers Market, is rocking on Saturday mornings. Where else can one go and enjoy a beautiful morning, listen to live music, nosh on some freshly baked treats, and have a locally roasted coffee, all while getting your knives sharpened and sorting through myriad locally grown, raised, and prepared items for your upcoming meals?
This time of year, there is a copious supply of spring greens: mesclun; oak leaf, Black Seeded Simpson, and Bibb lettuce; spinach — you name it. There are many ways to present these greens, either solo, as a mixed blend, or tossed with a protein to make a full-meal salad.
Back in the day, when we were trying to come up with new menu items at Hoss’s Market, we would poll our staff for new ideas, and we’d get some off-the-wall suggestions. In 2006, one of these was a salad recipe from our chef, Janet, and although I thought it was pretty odd, we decided to give it a shot.
We started with a base of mixed greens, then added diced fresh tomatoes, red onion slices, toasted sliced almonds, sweetened dried cranberries, and the piece de resistance, four discs of fresh goat cheese — chèvre — breaded and deep fried! Tossed with a sweet onion dressing, the sharp greens, paired with the breaded, gooey goat cheese topping, created the perfect balance of sweet and savory.
This, as with all of our signature salads, had to be served in a Pyrex pie plate, which Trish required so that the salad ingredients didn’t fall off the side of the plate. What I thought was a crazy idea turned out to be one of our best-selling salads: the Hoss’s Fried Goat Cheese Salad, paired with our Creamy Sweet Onion Dressing.
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 2 ½ tsp. ground black pepper
- 1/3 cup Dijon mustard
- 2 tsp. celery seed
- 1 pint pureed yellow onions
- ½ cup white vinegar
- ¾ cup white balsamic vinegar
- 1 tsp. Hoss’s steak seasoning
- 2 ½ Tbsp. minced fresh garlic
- 3/4 quart mayonnaise
Directions
- Blend all ingredients except the mayonnaise,
- Once blended, incorporate the mayo.
Keep refrigerated.
