A couple weeks ago, I ordered some Pink Pearl apples from a restaurant in my neighborhood. After I brought the brown bag home and opened it, however, I noticed the apples were a different color, bigger in size and … pear-shaped! Because I had never seen a Pink Pearl apple in real life, I thought maybe I had lost my mind when reading the description, so I cut into the mystery pomme to see if it had the telltale pink blotches of flesh I had read about. Instead, I saw the telltale off-white flesh of a pear. For a couple seconds, my brain tied itself in a knot.
After my brain hit “reset,” I decided to try the pear anyway to see what I was working with. While I have always found pears mealy and insipid across the board regardless of variety or ripeness, that all changed after eating this mystery pear. The restaurant eventually gave me my apples, but I didn’t desire them any longer — I had found a new love.
The variety of the mystery specimen was a Comice, a variety beloved by the French for its intense aroma. And while I remembered eating Comice pears in years past, I don’t remember them tasting as good as this Pink Pearl changeling.
After a taste test of all the varieties now at my local farmers market and grocery stores, I found that I really just love Comice. When the flesh is firm, exceptionally juicy and wallops me with an aroma like the Comice? That I can get behind. Now, what to do with them?
Try as I might, I’m not someone who simply eats raw fruit for a snack — I like them in things. With that goal in mind, I decided to do the next best thing to eating raw fruit: mix it into a salad. Inspired by various chopped salads I’ve had over the years that combined large chunks of apple and cheese, I cut the pear into bite-size blocks and toppled them over butter lettuce, along with some mild semi-firm cheese cut the same size as the fruit. A creamy buttermilk-based dressing adds tartness to the salad and a sprinkling of toasted walnuts and sharp radish sprouts add the right amount of delicate bitterness and spice.
Chopped Pear Salad With Buttermilk Dressing
I prefer a firmer-when-ripe, less mealy pear for this salad, like a Comice or if you can find them, Warren pears from Frog Hollow Farms; their texture and aroma stand up to the cheese, walnuts and creamy dressing the best. Try the dressing without garlic first and then add it if you think you want it. It gives the dressing a Caesar-y feeling that can compete with the other flavors of the salad.
Buttermilk Dressing:
1/2 cup chilled buttermilk
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
1/8 teaspoon cayenne
1 small garlic clove (optional)
Salad:
8 ounces butter lettuce or little gem lettuces (1 to 2 heads), whole leaves separated, washed and dried
1 ripe, chilled Comice or Warren pear, about 8 ounces, peeled (optional), cored and cut into 3/4-inch chunks
4 ounces Gruyere, Point Reyes Toma or another semi-firm, lightly aged cheese, rind removed and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/4 cup toasted walnuts, roughly chopped
1/4 cup radish or broccoli sprouts
Make the buttermilk dressing: Place the mayonnaise in a medium bowl and, while whisking, slowly pour in the buttermilk (this helps avoid lumps). Add the lemon juice, mustard, salt, cayenne and season with pepper. If you like, use a microplane grater to grate in the garlic (taste the dressing without it first because the garlic will give it a Caesar-like taste). Stir everything to combine and keep chilled until ready to use.
When ready to serve, arrange the lettuce leaves over a large serving platter or plate. Topple the pears and cheese all over the lettuce then season lightly with salt and pepper. Drizzle the salad with 1/4 cup of the dressing, then sprinkle the walnuts and sprouts over the top. Serve with the remaining dressing on the side.
Make Ahead: The dressing will keep in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
