Blood Orange and Fennel Salad
This light and bright salad is easy to make and will perk you up when the winter blues get you down.
Ingredients
- 2 blood oranges
- 2 caracara or navel oranges
- 1 small or 1/2 of large fennel bulb
- 1/2 medium sweet onion like vadalia
- 1 large head or 2-3 small heads of Boston Bibb lettuce
- Dressing
- Leftover juice from supremed oranges (about 1/4 cup)
- 1/4 cup good extra virgin olive oil
- 2 Tablespoons champagne or white wine vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon dijon mustard
- 1 Tablespoon raw honey/agave syrup/maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
- Pinch of ground habanero or black pepper to taste
- Sea salt to taste
Instructions
- Peel and supreme (segment) oranges over a bowl to catch the juice. Squeeze what is left of each orange to extract all the juice. Remove any seeds. Carefully strain juice from segments and reserve for dressing.
- Remove fronds from fennel bulb if necessary-you only want to use the bulb part for this as the stem is tough-but save it for making stock. Thinly slice fennel and onion-I use a mandolin for this to create uniform very thin slices but if you don't have one a sharp knife will do the job just fine.
- Wash and dry lettuce-leave whole leaves intact if they are small enough or gently rip into good-sized pieces. I was lucky enough to find fresh locally greenhouse-grown baby sized lettuce from a local farm this time of year-score!
- Make Dressing: Place all dressing ingredients into a bowl and whisk until emulsified. Then place sliced fennel and onion into the dressing to marinate for 1/2 hour up to 1 hour.
- Assemble Salad: Portion out and lay lettuce on plates. Spoon fennel/onion mixture and more dressing if desired on top of lettuce. Arrange orange segments over salad.
- Serve immediately.
Notes
Fennel and onion can marinate in dressing overnight in the refrigerator. You can use any lettuce of your liking or whatever you have on hand. For a video tutorial on how to supreme an orange click here. Toasted pine-nuts would make a nice addition sprinkled on top.
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