Blood oranges, tangerines, ruby and white grapefruit peeled and sliced onto a bed of sharp radicchio leaves make a salad that is like a plate of sunshine mid-winter.
Winter season, especially the end period, always seems bleak in terms of seasonal food. No new potatoes yet, even the earliest Jersey Royals, the still abundant root vegetables are getting a bit samey to eat, and unless you buy air-flown berries (you shouldn’t, and they are tasteless anyway), fresh fruit is scarce. Or is it?
Winter citrus
It’s in winter that the most amazingly tasty citrus are plentiful in the northern hemisphere. Satsumas are my favourites among the small citrus, and I adore ruby grapefruit when it comes to large fruit.
Navel, Jaffa and no-name oranges are common throughout the winter but people have got terribly lazy about them: have you seen lately anyone peeling an actual large orange? Nah – far too much faff. No wonder the tangerines or clementines are labelled ‘easy peelers’ rather than with the name of a variety. Oranges have become only fit for juicing rather than eating in segments.
Oranges are more than juice
Which is not so good: juice an orange, and all you ingest is basically sugar and water. The valuable fibre is chucked in the bin and juicing loses a lot of nutrients. It is admittedly better to drink than soft drinks including ‘diet’ ones, but for those (like me!) whose cold beverage options are only twofold (water or booze), the benefit is moot.
It is admittedly a small effort to prepare an orange for eating but absolutely worth it.
Especially when February comes and the loveliest citrus specimen comes along: blood oranges!
When oranges are not orange
Blood oranges, called thus because of the vibrant crimson colour of their flesh, are sweet, juicy, slightly raspberry in flavour and very delicious. Again, it’s wrong to buy them just for juice, especially that they are more expensive than regular orange oranges.
The varieties commonly available in the UK are grown in Spain and Italy; in America you will mostly encounter Californian and Floridian fruit.
But people these days are put off eating oranges: they don’t peel easily! There’s the pith and membranes! And sometimes (shock, horror) seeds! Well, I say: shame on you if that’s your attitude. It’s because of that we have sky-high obesity rates: food is too easy to get into gob.
How to prepare an orange for eating?
So indeed there is a tiny bit of an effort involved in preparing elegant (and easy to eat) slices or segments, for eating or for this salad. But once you get the hang of it, you’ll be going through them by a dozen.
All it takes is a sharp knife and following the natural shape of an orange. Slice off top and bottom, then cut off skin and pith strip by strip. Presto! A skinless, pithless fruit ready to slice across and eat, maybe even with a knife and fork, Downton Abbey-style.
Grapefruit requires a modified treatment because its membrane is rather tough. Once the skin is off, slide the knife into the flesh close to each segment’s membrane, cutting out dainty wedges. Squeeze out the carcass for juice that will make a wicked daiquiri!
Bitter sweet symphony
Once we have the citrus fruit all skinned, sliced and filleted, the salad (inspired by a New York Times Cooking recipe) is super easy.
It is really delightful thanks to the wonderful contrast of flavours between sweet citrus and bitter radicchio. The latter is a leaf vegetable of vibrant colour and punchy, strong taste, very popular in Italian cuisine. It might be too strong to British palates, in which case you can replace it with sweeter endive or fennel, but you’ll be missing out.
How to assemble the salad
Whether you use the radicchio, chicory, endive (or chicken out and chop up a little gem), make it the base of the salad in a bowl or a platter.
Next comes citrus and you can vary it as you wish but personally I’d say blood oranges are non-negotiable.
The add-ons are more of the bitter: olives and more of the sweet: dates. Walnuts add the crunch, and the dressing is made with finely chopped shallots soaked in grapefruit juice and whisked with good olive oil.
It is a wonderful, light and very elegant starter but it also goes surprisingly well as a side dish to chicken or pork.
More citrus recipes
Blood orange cake recipe, with olive oil and buttermilk in the mix. This recipe has the zest and small chunks of blood oranges in the batter, while olive oil makes for a lighter cake.
Orange chicken, spicy, fresh and sweet, ready in twenty minutes including all the chopping, is an easy stir fry lighter and healthier than the orange chicken from American Chinese restaurants. Especially delicious if you top the dish with caramelised orange segments.
Pasta with asparagus and lemon sauce is a light and simple dish. Calamarata pasta or any favourite shapes, segmented lemon and asparagus cooked with the boiling pasta, plus some butter and Parmesan make an exquisite springtime dish.
More refreshing salad recipes
Raw fennel and orange salad with dressing of orange juice plus a little oil. Fennel is one of the healthiest foods and it’s amazingly tasty raw and sliced thinly.
Mixed green salad with strawberries, the freshest and most vibrant summer side dish is like Pimm’s without the liquor. Cucumber, strawberries and mint on the bed of shredded lettuce need only excellent balsamic and olive oil and a showering of black pepper.
Watermelon and feta salad is the simplest summery perfection, the salty-sweet combo in the most refreshing form. Whole or half a watermelon is really easy to prepare and much better value than pre-cut tubs.