I’m a sucker for a good autumn salad. I’ll take hearty greens, roasted root veg, spiced nuts, soft cheese over a tomato-and-cucumber situation any day. Yet I’ve never had a chance to make one for the blog, so when I saw one mentioned in JONATHAN STRANGE & MR. NORRELL, I knew my time had come. Plus, I knew a beet salad would go perfectly with the other dishes I had planned for my Strange & Norrell menu—wigg buns with orange marmalade, a honeyed Cornish hen pot pie, and an opulent dessert I’m keeping secret for now. 😉
I added honey to my roasted beets to tie them in with both the pot pie entree and the vinaigrette I drizzled over the salad at the end (a honey Dijon variation on my go-to vinaigrette recipe). I wanted robust, earthy greens that would hold up to the deep flavor of the beets, so I used some kale and beet greens (never pass up a chance to use edible root veg greens in your salad—turnip greens are amazing too!). For salt and crunch, I included some bacon and toasted pine nuts.
An autumn salad craves soft cheese, so I went with goat cheese since it’s appropriate for the English countryside setting. Stilton would be even more appropriate, but I couldn’t get any. Up to this point, my salad is pretty much a standard beet salad, so I wanted something unusual to set it apart. Apricots were the answer to my prayer—sweet enough to brighten up all the other flavors, while rich enough not to get overpowered.
I ate this with my sister after I finished taking pictures, and we absolutely devoured it! In fact, she normally doesn’t like goat cheese, but she loved it here. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did! 🙂