You Don’t Win Friends with Salad

You don’t win friends with salad! You win friends with bacon! But that wasn’t the theme of this month’s Weekend Cookbook Challenge which is being hosted by Tami of Running with Tweezers. She chose salad for the theme and so it was a salad that I made. I contemplated making a bacon salad, you know, just strips of bacon in a maple syrup vinaigrette, but that recipe didn’t seem to be in any of my cookbooks, and the whole point of the WCC is to use your cookbooks. So with the bacon salad out of the picture, I decided to make a recipe from Michel Richard’s Happy in the Kitchen. This is the same book that brought you Faux Truffles for the chocolate round of Sugar High Friday, so you know it’s good. It’s a book that I love to look at, but haven’t made too much out of yet. I’ve definitely got my eye on a Kit Kat recipe though…

Once again, like bacon, Kit Kats do not constitute a salad, so instead I chose the Carrot Ribbon Salad with Aromatic Spices, Mint, and Oranges. It looks pretty, doesn’t? The carrot ribbons? Unfortunately I decided to make some substitutions to the recipe and they turned out not to be so great. The flavour of carrots and oranges goes wonderfully together, but carrot and grapefruit doesn’t. Not in this case anyways, and the grapefruit was no friend to the cumin either. It wasn’t horrible, it just wasn’t as good as it would have been if I had of followed the directions. I’m going to give you the original recipe so that you can try it and tell me how great it would have been if I had of done as I was told.

Carrot Ribbon Salad with Aromatic Spices, Mint, and Oranges (from Happy in the Kitchen by Michel Richard)

2 large oranges

1 ¼ lbs carrots, peeled and ends trimmed

3 garlic cloves, crushed

2 T extra virgin olive oil

2 T fresh lemon juice

2 tsp fresh lime juice

Fine sea salt

1 tsp ground cumin

20 mint leaves, cut into thin julienne

Freshly ground black pepper

To segment
the oranges, using a sharp knife, cut off both ends of each orange. One at a time, stand the orange on end. Working vertically around the orange, with a sharp knife, cut away the peel, including all the white pith, and discard. Working over a bowl, slice between the membranes to remove all the orange segments, letting them drop into the bowl; squeeze the juice from the membranes, then discard the membranes. Transfer the segments to another small bowl, and strain the juice over them. Set aside.

Use a vegetable peeler to slice the carrots into long ribbons, rotating the carrot after each pass. Stop slicing when you reach the core.

Place the garlic cloves in a large saucepan of water and bring to a boil. Fill a med bowl with ice water. Add the carrots to the boiling water and cook 2 minutes or until tender. Drain the carrots and plunge them into the ice bath. Discard the garlic. When cool, remove the carrots from the ice water and drain well on paper towels.

In a large bowl, combine the olive oil, lemon and lime juice, pinch of salt, and the cumin. Toss the carrots with the dressing, then add the orange juice and segments. Toss in the mint and season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and refrigerate for a few hours for the flavours to develop.

To serve, if there is a lot of liquid in the bottom of the bowl, strain it into a small saucepan, place the pan over med heat and reduce the liquid by about 1/3, or until it has concentrated in flavour. Remove from the heat and cool.

Place the salad in a serving bowl, mounding it slightly in the center. Drizzle with the reduction and olive oil.

Serves 4 as a side.

Technorati Tags:

WWC + Salad + Carrot + Citrus