This salad appears on the cover of Pomegranates & Pine Nuts, the wonderful book by Bethany Kehdy, a book filled with exciting and most colorful recipes. This recipe, with its sprinkling of pomegranate seeds, immediately grabbed Suzen’s attention.
Once we made this salad and sampled it over two nights, it grabbed our hearts. This dish, with all its multiple citrus ingredients, will storm your mouth. If you love citrus tang, you will welcome the army of flavor here. And, since sour demands sweet, you have the pomegranate seeds that offer crunch as well as sweetness. That snappy crunch is the perfect contrast for the pliant feel of the citrus components.
This salad has enough flavor and body to be your dinner. Just provide some bread and hummus on the side, and you have your meal. Or, better, from this same book you can use the Chargrilled Sweet Pepper & Walnut Dip:
How did we sample the salad? With a great burger, blacked and crisped. No bun, no tomato, no lettuce. Just a mound of beef to alternate bites with this lovely salad.
Suzen and I shared a beer and hunted down every last pomegranate seed. It’s a great salad that will have your eyebrows bending in new directions.
Consider this salad for your holiday table. It was a fine match for a burger. It would be a spectacular barrange of flavor and color to complement a holiday turkey or roast.
Moroccan Citrus Salad
Yield: serves 4
Ingredients:
- 1 lime
- 1 orange
- 1 blood orange
- 1 pink grapefruit
- Seeds from 1 pomegranate
- 2 teaspoons roughly chopped pistachios
- 2 tablespoons honey
- ½ teaspoon orange blossom water (optional)
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon chopped mint leaves, to sprinkle
- 4 tablespoons Greek yogurt for serving, optional
- 1-inch piece gingerroot, peeled and grated, for serving, optional
Preparation:
Using a sharp knife, trim the top and bottom of the lime so the flesh is revealed. Keeping the lime upright, cut through the peel downward from top to bottom, following the shape of the fruit, making sure to shave off all the peel and pith. Turn the lime onto its side and cut into thick wheels (not too thick, but thick enough so they are not falling apart). Remove the seeds and arrange the slices on a serving plate so they overlap.
Repeat with the remainder of the citrus fruit. Drizzle any juice over the citrus slices.
Sprinkle the pomegranate seeds and pistachios over. Put the honey and orange blossom water, if using, in a small mixing bowl and stir well, then drizzle it over the citrus fruits. Dust with cinnamon and sprinkle the mint leaves over.
To make the ginger yogurt, if using, put the yogurt and ginger in a bowl and mix well. Serve with the salad.
Source: Pomegranates and Pine Nuts by Bethany Kehdy [Duncan Baird Publishers, 2013]