SUN, CITRUS, SOLSTICE

The shortest day of the year is the brightest day. Low winter sun streams through the front windows, reaching all the way to the back of the room. The rays light up a bowl of oranges, causing the fruit to glow like small suns. 

Winter sunshine.

After a week of rain (and some serious flooding), the sunshine is a blessing. It warms the back of my neck where I sit at lunch and heats the water in the solar hot water system. The sun dips early behind the ridge and then it’s time to light a fire in the hearth. One thing about the winter solstice—the days are getting longer again.

Winter is citrus season. Here’s a bright and sunny salad to light up the dark.

Golden butternut squash and cut-up oranges make a salad full of bright colors and flavors.

Serve the salad as a side dish or--

in individual salad dishes as a starter.

Winter Salad with Oranges and Squash
Ensalada de Invierno con Naranjas y Calabaza

Serve the salad, room temperature, as a side dish on a festive table. It goes well with turkey, duck, pork or salmon. Or plate it individually and serve as a starter.

The butternut squash can be prepared with the dressing a day before serving, but the oranges are best cut up shortly before serving.

Serves 6 as a starter or side.

To cut up the oranges: Slice peel and white pith from the oranges, then cut them crosswise. Cut the slices into bite-size pieces.

2 cups diced butternut squash (approx. ½ squash)
Salt
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons pine nuts
1 tablespoon Sherry vinegar
½ teaspoon oregano
Freshly ground black pepper
½ cup thinly sliced red onion
¼ cup sliced black olives
2 cups cut-up oranges (2-3 oranges)
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
Salad greens

Bring a pan of salted water to a boil. Add the diced squash. When water returns to a boil, cook the squash 2 minutes and drain. Rinse in cold water to stop the cooking.

Heat ½ teaspoon of the oil in a small skillet and toast the pine nuts. Reserve them.

Add remaining oil, vinegar, oregano, pepper and ½ teaspoon salt to the squash. Cover and allow to marinate at least 1 hour and up to 12 hours.

Shortly before serving, add the onion, olives, oranges and parsley. Heap the squash and orange salad on salad greens in a shallow bowl or on individual plates. Sprinkle with pine nuts.

Holiday lunch in the sun. That's my son, Ben, and grandson, Leo. Besides the orange-squash salad, on the table are scarlet-pickled onions, mango chutney and partridge pâté (all those recipes appeared in recent blog posts). I also served roast turkey with a gluten-free mushroom and brown rice stuffing; dairy-free double-mashed potatoes; roasted brussels sprouts with walnuts; almond nougat mousse (recipe posted last week) for dessert along with bars of turrón (nougat) for the no-dairy guest.

More recipes with citrus fruits:
Orange and cod salad.
Avocado, grapefruit and fennel salad.
Lemon salad.
Artichoke and orange salad.
Sweet potato and clementine salad.
Intensely orange syrup.
Anchovies in orange escabeche.
Fish soup with sour orange.
Chicken tagine with lemons.
Lemon-roasted chicken.
Duck breast with Clementine sauce.

¡Felices Fiestas! Happy Holidays!

HOLIDAY CHEER FROM SUNNY SPAIN

At my house in southern Spain, holiday cheer is an evergreen tree glowing with bright golden ornaments. That would be the clementine tree on my patio, or the lemon tree on the edge of the vegetable garden or the neighbor’s pair of orange trees right above me. In Spain, citrus trees laden with fruit herald the winter holidays.

The gorgeous fruit finds its way into capacious Christmas stockings, into bowls, and onto festive holiday plates. Fresh-squeezed orange juice is pure bliss for a holiday breakfast or combined with bubbly cava for parties.  Big kids and little kids adore the juicy clementines, those easy-to-peel tangerines, with their tangy-sweet flavor. My son Ben, home last weekend with an incipient cold, ate about a dozen of them (and seems to have beat the flu bug, though the big dose of vitamin C did not protect him from injuring his knee while surfing).  

Last year I spent the holidays with my other son, Daniel, and his family in Atlanta. At a nearby supermarket, I found boxes of Spanish clementines at a great price. We went through crates of them before the stocks disappeared.

I go way back with my “orange Christmas.” Years ago, when I lived in a ramshackle village house, every winter I made marmalade with the bitter Seville oranges that grew in the back garden. Marmalade making was a three-day procedure, allowing the sliced oranges to soak, cook, and soak again in order to develop the pectin. I gave marmalade away as gifts and sold jars of it from my house.

I’m posting two citrus recipes. One is an adaptation of a salad found in tapa bars in southern Spain (called remojón, salmorejo or ensalada malagueña, depending where you are). The traditional recipe calls for bacalao, salt cod, which is toasted and shredded, topping the oranges. My version uses shrimp and I serve it as a starter for Christmas dinner. The other is also a salad, a contrast of juicy clementines, crisp fennel and smooth sweet potatoes. It makes a fine side dish on a buffet table. I took it to a brunch while visiting friends in Seattle last New Year’s.

Ensalada Malagueña
Málaga Salad with Oranges and Olives

A photo of this salad (by Michelle Chaplow) appears on the front cover of my newest cookbook, TAPAS—A BITE OF SPAIN (see the column to the left; click to order the book from Santana Books).

Makes 12 tapas or 6 starters.  


Salad greens
4 oranges, peeled and pith removed
1 small red onion or 6 scallions, thinly sliced
10 green or black pitted olives
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon Sherry vinegar
Pinch of red chile flakes
18 cooked and peeled shrimp

Arrange salad greens on individual salad plates.

Slice the oranges and cut into bite-sized pieces. Arrange them on the greens. Scatter the onions on top. Arrange the olives on the oranges.

In a small bowl, combine the garlic, oil, vinegar and chile.

Scatter the shrimp on top of the oranges. Drizzle with the dressing. Allow to stand 30 minutes before serving.

Salad of Sweet Potatoes, Fennel and Clementines

Serves 6 as a starter or side.

1 pound sweet potatoes (2 medium)
¼ cup red wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 large bulb of fennel (about 8 ounces)
3 clementines (about 10 ounces)
1 tablespoon finely chopped shallots
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon honey
1 tablespoon Sherry vinegar
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
Salad greens (optional)
½ red onion, thinly sliced
toasted almonds (optional)

Peel the sweet potatoes and cut them into ¾-inch cubes. Cook in boiling salted water until just tender, 4 to 5 minutes. Drain, refresh in cold water and drain again. Place the sweet potatoes in a bowl and add the wine vinegar, ¼ teaspoon salt and pepper. Cover and allow the potatoes to marinate at least 1 hour and up to 24 hours.

Trim the fennel of stalks, saving sprigs of the green fronds for garnish. Quarter the bulb, then thinly slice crosswise. Add to the sweet potatoes.

Remove skin and white pith from the clementines. Chop them and add to the sweet potatoes.

In a small bowl combine the shallots, mustard, honey, Sherry vinegar and ¼ teaspoon salt. Stir in the oil until dressing is smooth. Gently stir the dressing into the sweet potatoes. (Salad can be dressed up to 2 hours before serving.)

Place salad greens on plates. Scoop salad on greens. Scatter sliced onions and hazelnuts, if using, over the sweet potatoes. Garnish with sprigs of fennel greens.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!