A Simple Citrus Salad

This week most of the reduced produce I found was in the citrus family, which I thought would make for an interesting tossed spring-fruit salad.  Inspired by a seasonal fennel-citrus salad at one of my favorite Los Angeles restaurants, Forage, I decided to create a simple citrus salad.  Spending about $5.00 for the ingredients, my salad recipe will feed 4-5 people, and there were many left over ingredients to make up more if I’d had more people eating.  It’s a great light lunch salad, or it can be served with dinner as a side, which is what I did.

Salad Ingredients:

6-7 leaves of red leaf lettuce ($0.88)

1/2-1 sliced medium sized cucumber ($0.25)

2 oranges ($0.45 each)

1 grapefruit ($0.45 lb.)

Whole milk ricotta cheese ($1.73)

Dressing Ingredients:

1 teaspoon fig jam (or an apricot or marmalade jam would work too)

1/2 lemon juiced

1/3 of grapefruit, juiced

1/4 cup canola oil (or oil of choice)

1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Directions:

To make dressing, cut the top of the grapefruit off, about 1/3 the size, and juice it.  Cut lemon and juice 1/2.  Pour both juices into a jar.  Add oil, apple cider vinegar, jam and shake.  Sometimes the jam has difficulty breaking down, if this happens, it helps to smash it with a spoon against the walls of the jar.  Set aside.

Wash lettuce, blot dry with paper towel, and tear into bite size pieces.  Using a knife can brown the lettuce.  Peel and thinly slice the cucumber either with a mandolin or knife.  Peel and dice the two oranges and remainder of the grapefruit.

Toss lettuce, fruit, and cucumber in large bowl with salad dressing.  Serve into bowls and top with crumbles of ricotta cheese.

Note:  The salad was good, and the dressing wasn’t too heavy or too sweet, which really allowed the citrus fruit to be the focal point of the salad.  I think the cucumber was good for texture, and I would probably add more slices to each dish if I made this again.  This salad could easily be embellished with slivered almonds, or fresh berries.  Even slices of cumquats could be added for an additional citrus flavor because the ricotta helps mellow out the strong tanginess of the citrus fruits.  Overall, it was a good experiment, and I would make it again.

*In case you wanted a dinner suggestion, I served the salad with rosemary-lemon chicken, using homegrown lemons and homegrown rosemary to keep the cost down.  Using a dutch-oven pot, I put a whole chicken (about 7 pounds) inside, sprinkling it with 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, 1/2 teaspoon of pepper and several sprigs of rosemary.  I squeeze 1-2 lemons and pour juice into the bottom of pot along with 1 cup of water to keep the chicken moist.  I bake for 1 1/2 hours at 350 degrees, covered for the first hour and then uncovered the last 30 minutes to make the skin a bit crispy.  Let rest for about 15 minutes before serving.  It’s a simple way to make chicken, and after we eat the chicken meat, I use the carcass to make a chicken broth for an affordable homemade soup the following night.

Re-steamed Rice and Chilli Shrimp with Spinach and Avocado

What I bought:

1. Baby Spinach (reduced to £0.95)
2. King Prawns (reduced to £2.35)
3. Avocado (reduced to £1.55)
4. Mixed Chillies – Medium (reduced to £0.39)
5. Organic Spring Onions (reduced to £0.63)

What I added from home:

1. Leftover rice
2. Three tablespoons of coconut milk
3. Soy sauce
4. Garlic powder
5. Lemongrass

Evolution of the cooking method: The way I cooked this dish was dictated a little bit by the fact that I wanted to re-steam leftover rice so I evolved a sort of oven bain marie process. Anyway, you probably want to know what I made and how I made it.

The Dish: I’ve called it Re-steamed rice and chilli shrimp on a bed of blanched and fresh spinach with avocado on the side; say it quick enough and you’ll win an Oscar. Total prep time was about 25 minutes.

Preparation (per portion):

• Chop half a medium heat chilli and a spring onion into fine shreds and sauté for about a minute with a handful of king prawns, some garlic (to taste), a shred or two of lemon grass and a dash of soy sauce. (Pre-heat your oven to 210 c while you’re doing this)

• Transfer the mix into a Ramekin dish and add one tablespoon of coconut milk.
• Put a portion of leftover rice in a Ramekin dish and spread two tablespoons of coconut milk on top of it.
• Place the two Ramekins in a bain marie of sorts (I used the dish I usually use for making the family crumbles) and cook in the oven for 15 minutes.
• While the Ramekins are in the oven, quickly blanche half of the spinach (this is to add moisture as there is not much sauce, but also gives you a lovely contrast of paler and darker green on the plate) and chop a few slices of avocado (put some lime juice on the avocado if you don’t want it to oxidise/brown).
• Remove the Ramekins, plate and serve. Depending on how you handle the rice you might have a bit of crunch on the exposed side which just makes for textured eating 🙂

How it tasted: Considering I just made this up, it tasted quite balanced. MissMissus (who took the pictures with some Android thing) loved it and my mother, who is visiting, said she wanted to taste it and ended up eating half of it. I think it works because the chilli in the prawn gives you a nice kick, which the spinach and avocado help neutralise. Also, in addition to adding moisture, the blanched spinach undercuts the intensity of flavours from the prawn/chilli/soy/lemongrass… In a word, it was good; simple, but good.

Leftovers: In case it’s of any interest I used my leftover prawns to make a basic tumeric-coconut milk-shrimp paste-lime-lemongrass-ginger-chilli-onion-fish sauce curry soup. I threw in the last few leaves of spinach for good measure.

Looking for a crew

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What is this blog? Simple; I love food and I love the challenge of making good food. To keep me company, I’m looking for a crew of people who love food and food challenges. The challenge for this blog is, once a month (more often if you wish) you go to the aisle with reduced to clear items in your supermarket, pick five items, go home and cook something with them and then share the recipe with us on this blog. Pictures would be nice, but are not essential. Video would be cool, but not required. What I do need is a minimum of four people to start. I’ll add you to the blog, we’ll pick a day and get going. Are you in?

Nii Ayikwei Parkes
Writer & Food Lover