I used to make a slightly more refined version of this watercress, blue cheese and apple salad around the holidays. I would painstakingly remove all the watercress leaves from the stems, grate the apple, toast the walnuts lightly, and place a generous wedge of blue cheese atop each individually portioned salad as a lovely appetizer, served with either crusty French bread or thinly cut toasted raisin and walnut bread. This is a very tender and delicious salad, and somehow rather festive.
In making this for myself as a dinner salad, I made a slightly more rustic version. I only removed the toughest of stems, cut the apple into batons as this was quicker and easier, added the walnuts to the salad without toasting them first, and crumbled the blue cheese into the bowl and distributed it throughout the salad. The end result is very different texturally to the original, but equally delicious in flavor.
Feel free to make your own version of this!
2 cups of watercress, washed and well dried
1/2 an organic apple (I used Honeycrisp), cored and cut into batons
1/3 cup blue cheese, one on the creamy side, crumbled
1/4 cup walnuts, broken into irregular pieces
1 Tbsp olive oil
2 tsps rice wine, Champagne, or light white vinegar
Squeeze of lemon juice
Salt to taste
Measure the olive oil, vinegar, squeeze of lemon juice and a generous pinch of salt into a large bowl. Whisk to combine.
Add the watercress and the apple batons and toss well to combine. repeat with the walnuts and blue cheese.
Not a complicated salad to make, but definitely worth making!