Stacked boston lettuce with fennel, blue cheese, and toasted walnuts

This composed salad is beautiful, full of flavor and ready in under 10 minutes. It makes a wonderful first course when you are entertaining. Stacking the leaves creates a great presentations and makes a basin for the remaining ingredients. Boston and Bibb lettuces might be called butterhead or butter lettuce in your supermarket. They get their name from the tender buttery texture of their leaves. Using the broth in the dressing is a great trick for making a richly flavored dressing without adding a lot of high calorie ingredients. To get your blue cheese ready for grating, place the 1-ounce piece of blue cheese in the freezer until frozen, at least 1 hour. Then grate the cheese directly onto the salad using the medium-sized grate on a four-sided grater.