It is a quick salad to make and the flavours and textures make it a true delight to eat. We use gorgonzola dolce for the dish, which is a bit milder than the more pungent gorgonzola piccante. Each individual ingredient is beautiful to eat on its own but, when small quantities of each are combined on the fork, they are sublime.

3 pears, cored and sliced (we used corella pears)
1 fennel bulb, sliced
20g butter
200g gorgonzola
9 slices prosciutto
Watercress
Rocket
Small interesting leaves and flowers, such as chervil, chives, chive flowers, nasturtium, etc.

Serves 6

On the serving plates arrange the watercress, rocket and chervil and set aside.

Next, lay the prosciutto on baking paper on a shallow tray and place under a grill for a couple of moments until crispy. Set aside. Be careful as the grill will burn the prosciutto if it is under for too long.

Grab a wok or large frying pan and melt the butter in it. Add the sliced pear and fennel. Stir-fry for about 4 minutes over a medium heat until they are golden and starting to soften. Set aside for a moment and allow to cool so that they will not bruise the salad leaves then placed on top. Note: don’t let them cool too much as they are beautiful with the salad when they are still warm.

Arrange the pear and fennel slices on top of the leaves, top with the crispy prosciutto and broken chunks of gorgonzola. Carefully arrange the decorative edible flowers around the plates.

We enjoyed eating the salad with a glass of 10 year old merlot. Beautiful!