Gorging on Gorgonzola

Baked leek, Gorgonzola and Walnut Penne

I've got into Gorgonzola, but mostly I just put it on leafy salads. I figured I'd try making hot food with blue cheese so tried a version of this recipe. The result was, however, just a little disappointing. It was mac and cheese with knobs on, but they weren't nice knobs. The grocery store that we use doesn't do much frozen vegetables. The peas that we got were so hard and powdery that for a moment I thought we'd got dried peas by mistake. The overall dish was really quite heavy, so much pasta and cheese and bullet peas with a side of garlic bread. It was a much more dense meal than I imagined. I shan't be making this one again but I'll put the details here anyway for the sake of continuity.

First, I heated a small amount of vegetable oil in a pan until it got very hot, and I quickly fried some sliced chicken breast. I added a two cloves of garlic and a pinch of pepper to this. When the chicken was cooked, I set it aside. While this was cooking I boiled penne pasta. Then I washed out the pan, and returned it to the heat. I melted 100g of butter, fried 3 leeks and half an onion until soft. Added frozen peas, lots of fresh tarragon and the juice of one lemon. I stirred ricotta cheese, and gorgonzola (150g of each) and a handful of walnuts. When the cheese was melted and warm through I added the chicken and the penne and served.

Gorgonzola salad

I have totally ripped off this recipe from a local restaurant called Breadwinners. It's called "Pear & Gorgonzola" salad. The menu lists that it contains tomato, pear, pecans, greens, balsamic Parmesan vinaigrette". It is the best salad I've ever eaten, so I imitate it regularly. I make my own balsamic Parmesan vinaigrette, out of olive oil, balsamic vinaigrette and freshly grated Parmesan (my ratios are about 1:1:1) put into a blender to combine. I have to go back to figure out exactly which greens they're using, but I'm pretty sure that one of them is arugula. It's HEAVENLY!

This picture isn't exactly of the Breadwinner's salad, but it's almost exactly the same, it just has apple instead of pears and feta instead of Gorgonzola. I made it for out housemates birthday to serve alongside a smoked brisket of beef. Everyone complimented it. The fools thought that they were eating something healthy, but really there's a whole block of Parmesan in the dressing.