Winter is prime season for a citrus salad. During the winter most citrus fruits are at their sweetest and juiciest. The bright sunny colors will at least give us some hope of summer. Remember summer?
Chicories, which include red-leaved radicchio, Belgian endive, lacy green-and-white curly endive, curly frisée, and lettuce-like escarole, are members of the lettuce family that share a slight, lovely bitterness. When paired with salty elements like blue cheese, ham or warm bacon dressing the salt lessons the bitterness creating a perfect balance of salt fat and acid. When chicories are cooked the bitterness is transformed into a nutty flavor. Chicories are delicious with citrus salad, they are also well suited for grilling or as add ins for soups and stews.
Store chicories and endives wrapped in a paper towel inside a plastic bag in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator for up to a week. They can still be used after a week—but discard any leaves that show signs of yellowing.
Citrus salad
Ingredients
DRESSING
- 1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar
- 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1-2 tablespoons of mixed juices from the
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3 ounces extra virgin olive oil
- 1 lemon, zested
SALAD
- 2 cup escarole heart, cut into 1½ inch pieces, washed and spun dry
- 1-2 cups assorted winter chicories like frisée, endive and radicchio
- 12 Satsuma mandarin segments, cut in half
- 1 blood orange, peeled, sliced into 1/4-inch thick rounds and then quartered
- 8 pink grapefruit segments, cut in half
- 1 Cara Cara orange, peeled, sliced into 1/4-inch thick rounds and then quartered
- Handful of blackberries
- 1/4 cup of pomegranate arils
- One small shallot, sliced thin
- 2 ounces Gorgonzola dolce, at room temperature
- Olive oil
- Sea salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Small basil leaves
- Freeze dried orange peel, finely ground
Method
For the dressing:
- Combine all ingredients in a mason jar and mix. Shake well before each use.
For the salad:
- Arrange ingredients on a serving platter in the order listed.
It just doesn’t get any easier than that!!!
Enjoy!
