Portuguese | Fig, Ham and Sheep's Cheese Salad

Posted on December 26, 2017

I was looking for an easy salad to serve with a Portuguese dinner and found this. The name of the salad in the cookbook is "Fig, Pear, Ham & Sheep's Cheese Salad", but the recipe didn't have any pears. A misprint for sure. I didn't notice until after I went shopping so I left them out. We loved the salad. I ordered Serrano ham online from the Spanish Table. I wasn't able to find the Portuguese cheese so I used Manchego, a Spanish sheep's milk cheese, instead. When I made it another time, figs were out of season so I used thinly sliced (half-moon shape) pears.

Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients

8 slices of Portuguese presunto ham, Parma or Serrano ham

6 cups seasonal salad leaves, washed

8-10 ripe green or purple figs, quartered (or French butter pears)

5 ounces semi-hard sheep's cheese, like Portuguese Évora or Nisa

 

For the dressing:

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

salt

freshly ground black pepper

 

Method

Shred the ham into large pieces, place in a dry pan over a medium heat and fry until just crisp. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Arrange the salad leaves and then the figs, either on a large platter or divided between 4 plates. Using a grater or potato peeler, shave wide strips of the cheese over the salad.

Whisk together the extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice in a bowl, adding salt and pepper to taste, then drizzle this dressing over the salad. Finish with the frazzled ham pieces.

 

(Ref. "Fig, Pear, Ham & Sheep's Cheese Salad" recipe, Lisbon, page 97.)