I have many favorite memories of living in Colorado in my youth, among them is peach season. The fruit orchards around the Western Slope town of Paonia produce some of the best peaches, apples, cherries, pears and plums in the world. At the time, we didn’t use the phrase or slogan of eating local, organic food, but we regularly did, and the peaches of September remain memorable to my palette.
And so it was on this final weekend of September, the yellow peach I bought a couple days ago had reached its zenith of ripeness, and lucky me, I had on hand fresh and organic spinach salad, some Burrata cheese that I had used to make a riff on eggplant Parma the other night, and assorted nuts. Because this was my mid-day meal, I boiled an egg to yield enough protein to get me through the day. The peach I ate with this splendid meal was from an unknown orchard. It may have been from Paonia though it is unlikely. Regardless I named the salad Paonia Peach and Burrata Salad in tribute to that place, and those memories, not to mention Paonia has a nice sound it, like LaPaloma, or Pay-ola. Besides, it’s my blog so I can call these dishes what I want. It was a working lunch for me so I didn’t drink wine with it, but if I served this lunch for a friend or lover, I would have opened a Chablis I have been drinking that I got earlier this summer from Kermit Lynch. The Chablis is a Vielles Vignes, 2018, from Roland Lavantureux.
Paonia Peach and Burrata Salad
One serving
1.5 cups fresh spinach salad
One small peach or half of one large peach, preferably organic and perfectly ripe
2 ounces or about 8 slices of good Burrata cheese
One egg, hardboiled
A couple splashes of The Ultimate Arugula Salad Dressing
A small handful of raw pecans and walnuts
Salt and white sugar
Roasted sesame oil
Boil an egg and let cool.
In a small skillet, heat 1.5 Tablespoons of roasted sesame oil and toss in the nuts before the oil gets too hot. Stir them around so both sides/all sides of the nuts get a nice coating and roast until golden brown. One or two might get blackened. Don’t worry about it, but don’t overdo it, either.
Turn heat off before they are fully roasted, and add a little salt and little white sugar, then stir the nuts around and let cool.
Slice the peach and Burrata. Toss the salad, putting greens down on the plate first, then top with peach slices, cheese and nuts, in that order. I sliced the egg and lightly salted it and put that on the side of the salad. If you are at a picnic, enjoying some charcuterie or other meat, or want to feature this salad for dinner on a warm evening, skip the egg assuming you are serving some other protein, and enjoy!
