Blood Orange & Fennel Salad
It’s a marvelously magenta blood orange and fresh fennel salad with a complex range of bitter, sweet, salty and tangy flavors that can brighten up even the greyest of winter days!
Servings: 4
Ingredients
Salad
- 4 cups leaves from chicories endive, escarole, frisee, Treviso, radicchio or a mix
- 6 blood oranges cut into segments
- 2 fennel very thinly sliced
- 4 ounces ricotta salata shredded
- 1/3 cup pistachios lightly toasted
- 1 shallots very thinly sliced
- handful mint leaves chiffonade
- flaky sea salt to taste
- pepper to taste
Vinaigrette
- juice from segmented oranges
- 1 tablespoon champagne vinegar add more to taste
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 tablespoon honey
- flaky sea salt to taste
- pepper to taste
Instructions
- Segment the blood oranges, squeezing every last drop of that blood orange juice out as well.
- Whisk together the blood orange juice, honey, vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.
- Thinly slice the shallots and marinade in the vinaigrette while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. Ideally, the can chill in the vinaigrette at least 20 minutes.
- Thinly slice the fennel, preferably on a mandolin if you have one.
- Wash & dry chicory leaves. Toss them with 2-3 tablespoons of vinaigrette to coat them lightly. Spread on a platter or divide among 4 shallow bowls. Scatter with fennel, citrus, pistachios, cheese and mint. Drizzle with a little more dressing and sprinkle with a bit of flaky sea salt and black pepper. Enjoy right away.
Notes
- Pick oranges that are firm to the touch and feel heavy for their size.
- How to segment citrus: cut the top and bottom off so the citrus sits flat, cut the skin deep enough off to expose the flesh and carefully cut out the segments from the membrane, holding the fruit over a bowl to catch the juices (and use for the vinaigrette).
- Don’t worry if you can’t find blood oranges! Sub ruby red grapefruit or pretty pink cara cara oranges instead (or a combo!)
- Any kind of chicories (or a combo) works!
- If you have a mandolin, now is the time to use it! Slice that fennel nice and thin.