Charred green and black salad with cheese, walnuts and fruit salsa

Zucchini and eggplant offer the green and black components in this salad. They're balanced by the sweet and fresh hit from stonefruit and nashi pear. The recipe serves two as a main dish but will easily feed four as a starter or side.

• serves

  2

• prep

  25 minutes

• cook

  20 minutes

• difficulty

  Mid

Ingredients

• 3-4 baby zucchini, cut on an angle into 1-2 cm-thick rounds
• 1 large eggplant, cut into 1 -2 cm-thick rounds
• sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• olive oil, for drizzling
• 80 g log fresh cows milk or goats cheese, (or any other soft cheese)
• 1 baby beetroot, thinly sliced

Salsa

• 3 large pickled walnuts, finely chopped
• 30 g (¼ cup) roasted walnuts, toasted and finely chopped
• 2 plums, seeded and finely diced
• 2 Nashi pears, cored and finely diced
• 1 pinch chilli flakes
• 1 pinch ground pepper berry
• ½ bunch mint, leaves picked and roughly chopped
• ½ bunch flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped
• 3 tsp extra virgin olive oil
• storebought elderflower dressing, to taste (or your favourite salad dressing)

Instructions

1. Heat a chargrill pan or barbecue grill over medium-high heat.  Place the zucchini and eggplant into a medium bowl. Drizzle with olive oil and a good pinch of salt and pepper and toss to combine. Grill for 3-4 minutes on each side or until grill marks appear and the vegetables are tender. Transfer to a serving plate.

2. Meanwhile, for the salsa, place all the ingredients in a bowl with a pinch of salt and stir to combine.

3. To serve, drizzle the salsa over the chargrilled vegetables and toss gently to coat. Roughly chop the goat’s cheese and scatter over the top with the thinly sliced beetroot.

Ainsley Harriott explores Australia's best regional produce markets in the brand-new season of Ainsley's Australian Market Menu on SBS and SBS On Demand.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.