Summer of recipes from Tudor Park: Grilled pancetta salad

Bored with your office lunch? Does a sandwich leave you feeling bloated or tired in the afternoon? Tudor Park’s new Executive Head Chef Alfonso Salvaggio has put together a selection of packed lunch ideas that will stimulate the taste buds as well as the brain cells.

Alfonso (pictured left) and his 13-strong team of chefs are experienced in creating beautiful buffets for business lunches, meetings and conferences that help energise as well as being delicious.

Throughout the summer, the four-star Tudor Park Marriott Hotel & Country Club in Bearsted, near Maidstone, Kent, has been ringing the changes on business meetings by offering an outdoor experience – weather permitting – and a picnic hamper of salads and light bites that beats being stuck in the boardroom hands down!

Some of those dishes have been recreated for readers of PA Life, so you too can give your lunch break a summer makeover. This week’s recipe is a crisp and healthy grilled pancetta salad with honey vinaigrette dressing.

Grilled pancetta salad with honey vinaigrette dressing
Makes five portions
400g pancetta
3 Baby gem lettuce
Bag of washed rocket leaves
1 cucumber, peeled and seeded
Punnet of cherry tomatoes
200g Parmesan shavings
2 tabs of green olives, stoned
2 tabs of toasted pine nuts

For the vinaigrette:
200ml extra virgin olive oil
50ml hazelnut oil
100ml white wine vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
Half a clove of crushed garlic
1 tsp ketchup
1 tsp sesame oil
3 tsp clear honey
Salt and pepper 

Method:

• Grill the pancetta – keep a close eye on it as it will brown far quicker than bacon.
• Peel and deseed the cucumber and slice thinly. Halve or quarter the baby tomatoes and slice the stone green olives. Keep all the salad ingredients wrapped separately in the fridge.
• To make the dressing: Combine all the ingredients and mix all with a blender or mixer.
• To serve: Combine the pancetta with lettuce, rocket, tomatoes, cucumber, tomatoes, olives and pine nuts into a lunchbox. Drizzle over the vinaigrette, pop on the lid and you’re good to go!
• Chef’s tip: Ring the changes by adding sun-blushed tomatoes and croutons – keep the croutons wrapped in foil and sprinkle over when you are ready to eat the salad, otherwise they will go soggy. The grilled pancetta should keep for up to two days in the fridge and the vinaigrette for up to a week.