Wake up your winter palate with bitter radicchio and endive salad, spiked with
fresh sweet satsuma mandarin oranges. For even more lively flavor, dress the
salad with citrus juice whisked with salt, black pepper and a delicate oil.
This is a really easy way to perk up your winter salad repertoire. And tease a dulled palate back to life…
I’ve always loved the bitterness of radicchio and endive in a simple white balsamic vinaigrette, especially when eating something rich like Cuban pork shoulder or even a plain roasted chicken. The lively bitterness and acidity cut through the delicious fat, creating a savory interplay of flavors.
Right now, fresh mandarin oranges are in season. The other night I peeled one and mixed the pieces into my favorite winter salad: Suddenly the flavors bloomed.
Mandarins have a melting, almost honeyed sweetness, with a mildly acidic edge. Eating a fresh one is incomparable, almost like biting into a luscious citrus explosion. Add them to a salad of bitter greens with a little salt and black pepper, and you’ve got most of the major taste sensations: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, hot.
Mandarins are warm weather travelers. Like so many citrus types, they’ve crisscrossed the globe for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years, moving from their native Southeast Asia and the Philippines to Japan, China and India, on to England, Australia, and the Mediterranean, and then to America, where the first “willow-leaf” mandarin was planted at the Italian consulate in New Orleans around 1850. Naturally hundreds of varieties sprang up along the way.
Satsumas are said to have developed in Japan, possibly in the 17th century, but perhaps hundreds of years earlier. They’ve jumped back and forth between China and Japan, each time developing new characteristics. Confusingly, mandarins are sometimes called emerald tangerines, since certain varieties remain green even when ripe. Even more confusing: tangerines are considered a class of mandarin oranges.
Don’t try to figure it out. Just try not to eat all your mandarins before you make the salad. Here’s the recipe.
Winter Salad of Radicchio, Endive and Satsuma Mandarin Oranges
To serve 4
Ingredients:
1 small head radicchio, outer leaves removed
3 green endives, outer leaves removed
3 fresh Satsuma mandarin oranges
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Canola oil, or very mild, delicate French olive oil
Method:
1. Tear the radicchio leaves into largish, bite-size pieces. Break each endive leaf in half. Place all the leaves in a salad bowl.
2. Peel 2 of the mandarin oranges. Separate each orange into sections. Remove as much of the scruffy white pith and threads as you can, without getting too obsessive about it. Add the mandarins to the salad bowl.
3. Cut the remaining mandarin orange in half and squeeze the juice into a small bowl. There should be 2 to 3 tablespoons. Remove any seeds. Add a litle salt and freshly ground pepper to taste, and set aside until the salt dissolves.
4. Briskly whisk 1 to 1-1/2 tablespoons of canola or very mild, delicate olive oil into the juice, until well combined. (Be sure that the oil does not mask the taste of the orange juice.) Pour over the salad, toss and serve.
