It’s the first day of spring. In NYC, it got to 50 degrees today. For this weekend in our upstate house will we be planting flowers? No. It will be 20 degrees and snowing.
To help chase winter away here’s a lovely idea from Gaby Dalkin in Absolutely Avocado. This is, in Gaby’s words, a knife-and-fork salad. You get to dig into this course with its multiple layers and assortment of flavors and textures. It is, truthfully, a salad you could enjoy in any season of the year.
You can change this salad to meet your preferences and what’s available in your supermarket. Don’t leave out the grapefruit, though, which is central as the foundation of the citrus pillar in this salad. Beyond the chives here, you could certainly add some sliced sweet onion or rounds of scallions.
Here’s my review of this precise little book.
Winter Citrus and Avocado Salad
Yield: serves 6
Ingredients:
- 6 large Boston lettuce leaves
- 1 pink grapefruit
- 1 naval orange
- 1 tangerine
- 1 Hass avocado
- ¼ cup chopped fresh chives
- 1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil
- ½ teaspoon agave nectar
- Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
Preparation:
Spread out the pieces of lettuce on a large serving platter.
Cut the top and bottom off the grapefruit. Stand the grapefruit on its bottom and carefully cut away the skin to reveal the pith-free flesh of the fruit. Turn the grapefruit back on its side and cut the citrus into six ¼ inch-thick slices If there are any visible seeds once the citrus has been sliced, carefully remove those by poking them out with a small knife. Arrange 1 slice of the grapefruit in each Boston lettuce leaf. Repeat this process for the orange and tangerine.
Cut the avocado in half lengthwise. Remove the pit from the avocado and discard. Remove the avocado from the skin, and cut each half of the avocado into 6 strips. Add 2 strips on top of each citrus pile.
Sprinkle the chives on top of each Boston lettuce cup. Drizzle with the olive oil and agave nectar. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve immediately.
Source: Absolutely Avocado by Gaby Dalkin [Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013]