Poached Pear and Prosciutto Salad

First, prepare poached pears. You can make these in advance if you are entertaining with this salad. Peel pears and slice in half lengthwise. Use a melon baller or small spoon to scoop out seeds.

In a medium-sized saucepan, heat white wine, sugar, cinnamon and cloves over medium high heat. Then when it begins to bubble, add pears and reduce heat slightly to medium low. Let pears cook for 15 minutes until they are soft but still firm enough to cut into slices. When pears are cooked, remove them from the pan, but reserve 1 cup of poaching liquid.

Reduce the reserved poaching liquid over high heat until it reduces down to 1/4 cup and becomes syrupy. Now make the salad dressing. In a medium-sized bowl or a mini food processor, mix 3 tablespoons of the pear poaching syrup, minced shallots, champagne vinegar, sherry vinegar, salt and pepper. Then whisk in oil or pulse salad dressing together until it becomes thicker and full emulsified.

Finally, assemble salad close to the time you want to serve it. In a large bowl, toss dressing and lettuce. Then layer on prosciutto, pecans and blue cheese and top off with pears. You can either slice them into separate thin slices or slice halves as a thin spiral by not cutting them all the way through at the very top of the pear stem.