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Grilled apple salad with blue cheese and maple vinaigrette

Time40 minutes
YieldsServes 4
Grilled apple salad with blue cheese and maple vinaigrette
(Kirk McKoy / Los Angeles Times)
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Growing up, I associated maple flavor with the pancake syrup found at the breakfast table. It was sweet but mostly flavorless. As if its only purpose was to baptize food in a sticky coating of liquid sugar. I wasn’t the biggest fan.

Today it seems maple is everywhere. It flavors ice cream, candy, coffee, tea, barbecue sauce and more. Thirsty? Hydrate yourself with maple water, now hip enough to be touted as the next coconut water.

And maple isn’t just limited to retail products. Go out to eat and you’ll find it added to any number of restaurant dishes. It’s a chef’s Eliza Doolittle.

I now look for any excuse to add the real syrup to a dish, whether simple desserts, such as a salted maple stove-top pudding, or a brine for a basting glaze for slow-smoked turkey or duck. I’ll even sneak it into salads as the sweet component in a vinaigrette. And, yes, pancakes aren’t complete without it.

“Maple syrup is a great alternative sweetener. It’s natural,” says Jon Shook, co-owner with Vinny Dotolo of the restaurants Animal and Son of a Gun. Maple has found a way onto the menus of both places.

The smoked steelhead roe with maple cream and pumpernickel bread at Son of a Gun “has a bit of a cult following,” says Dotolo. Unusual sounding, perhaps, if you haven’t yet tried it. But, Dotolo adds, “it kind of reminds you of bagels and lox. The smokiness, saltiness and sweetness lends itself to a really nice contrast.”

Another cult favorite? The foie gras loco moco at Animal. Its take on the Hawaiian comfort food layers rice, a beef burger, Spam, foie gras and a quail egg bathed in a sweet-spicy sauce punctuated with notes of Sriracha and maple syrup.

“I have a kind of attachment to maple syrup,” says Susan Feniger of Border Grill and Mud Hen Tavern. She says she used to make maple syrup when she was in college in Vermont. Feniger describes collecting the sap and staying up all night, boiling the sap down to a syrup. “It was pretty incredible. I’ve always been a big fan.”

At Feniger’s Mud Hen Tavern, she’s used maple syrup quite a bit over the years. “Kind of from the Street days,” she says. (Feniger transformed Street, her earlier restaurant, into Mud Hen in 2013.). “You’ve got that Southeast Asian sweet-salty thing going on.” Maple infuses a number of dishes, including chicken and waffle croquettes served with a spicy maple sauce and smoked pork belly flavored with an espresso-maple brine.

The restaurant even features a cocktail called the Old Maple, which, though it doesn’t contain any actual maple, combines a mixture of rye whiskey, walnut bitters and agave. “It almost tastes like maple syrup,” Feniger says.

Maple syrup itself is going through a bit of a renaissance. “Maple syrup has such a distinct flavor,” says Shook. “The generation I grew up in, it was Aunt Jemima.”

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Same syrup, new grades

In late January, the U.S. Department of Agriculture revised its voluntary maple syrup grading standards to match international standards. Because of increased demand for darker syrup for cooking and table use, the new classifications are meant to address producer concerns and customer confusion, and include color and flavor descriptors. Everything sold retail is now considered Grade A with these classifications.

Golden color with delicate taste (formerly Grade A light amber)

Amber color and rich taste (formerly Grade A medium and dark amber)

Dark color and robust taste (formerly Grade A dark amber and Grade B)

Very dark and strong taste (formerly Commercial grade)

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1

Cook the bacon strips over medium heat until the fat is rendered and the strips are crisp, about 10 minutes. Drain the bacon on paper towels, reserving 3 tablespoons bacon grease.

2

Remove any wilted outer leaves from the radicchio and slice it lengthwise into eight wedges. Trim the top off the fennel, halve it lengthwise, then slice it crosswise into half-inch strips, discarding the core. Core the apples and cut each into 8 wedges.

3

Whisk together the shallots, thyme, rosemary, maple syrup, vinegar, bacon grease and olive oil. Season with one-half teaspoon salt and a grind of black pepper, or to taste. This makes about 1 cup vinaigrette.

4

Brush the apple wedges with a little of the vinaigrette and place them on an oiled grill heated over medium-high heat. Grill the wedges for about 2 minutes on each side, until slightly softened with defined grill marks. Remove and reserve in a warm place. Do the same with the fennel and radicchio.

5

Divide the apple, fennel and radicchio among 4 plates. Crumble the blue cheese over the salads, and sprinkle over the bacon. Drizzle 1 to 2 teaspoons of the remaining vinaigrette over each salad. Serve immediately.