Sasha's Kitchen: Romaine Salad With Goat Cheese Fritters, Dried Cranberries, Pecans & Passion Fruit Dressing

Last week, I had a wonderful salad with goat cheese fritters, pumpkin seeds, boston bibb lettuce and dried cranberries at the Farm On Adderley (click here to read my review), I was inspired to create a similar salad using goat cheese fritters.  I had tried to deep fry goat cheese years ago in making a salad and it was a disaster - the goat cheese melted during the frying process. This time, I did a bit of research and learned that the process would work effectively if you freeze the goat cheese for about 45 minutes (not longer) prior to the battering and frying.  It worked, and the salad was a huge success at my Saturday brunch with our guests.

For the salad dressing, I did a unusual take on a fruit reduction vinaigrette and created my own passion fruit reduction using some Welch's passion fruit juice that I purchased at the grocery store.  The dressing was sweet but complemented the goat cheese and the tangy dried cranberries in a lovely way, and had the distinct flavor of passion fruit that I love so much.  Another note, I absolutely would have loved to use Boston (Bibb) lettuce with this salad, but it wasn't available fresh right now at my grocery stores and organic market so I had to settle for romaine, which was pretty good, as well.

Sasha's Romaine Salad With Goat Cheese Fritters, Dried Cranberries, Pecans & Passion Fruit Vinaigrette (4 salads)
Large head of romaine lettuce or Boston (Bibb) lettuce (2 heads if you use Boston lettuce)
dried cranberries
chopped pecans
8 oz goat cheese
2 eggs
dried bread crumbs (I recommend using plain bread crumbs, not Panko for this recipe)
2 cups passion fruit juice
1/2 cup canola oil

To prepare the goat cheese fritters, form the goat cheese into 12 balls.  Put in the freezer for about 45 minutes.  Remove frozen balls of goat cheese from the freezer, batter in beaten eggs, and coat with breadcrumbs.  Deep fry following the instructions for your deep fryer, or in a large pot with a couple inches of oil.  If you are using a hot pot, about three inches of canola oil and a heat setting of about 350 degrees is what my husband used (yes, it's true, Brad did the deep frying, not me because I hate deep frying!)

To make the dressing, reduce the passion fruit juice to about 1/2 a cup by heating on high for about 20 minutes or so.  Then, mix with the canola oil to form a dressing.  Assemble the salads with the lettuce, pecans, goat cheese balls and dried cranberries.  I was very happy with the reception I got from this salad from our brunch guests!