Although the weather is less spring-like than recent newspaper spreads on salad would suggest, it’s still hard to resist the siren call of fresh greens.
I singled out a bunch of spinach at the grocery store last weekend. Emerald-green, velvety and surprisingly clean this time of year, bundled spinach tends toward the disheveled, tough and gritty as the warm season heats up, making it more suited to cooking than consuming fresh, in my opinion.
The batch I brought home hardly took any time to wash and pick over before I tossed it with some sliced California strawberries, avocado, feta cheese, roasted turkey breast and fried wonton strips. The strawberries aren’t very sweet yet, so a sweet dressing, such as raspberry vinaigrette, goes well with a salad like this.
Then I went outside for a walk and noticed the carpet of miners’ lettuce behind the house. I could have easily augmented my spinach with this wild weed, highlighted today in an outdoors story. Or I could have composed an entire salad from the stuff in my backyard. Miners’ lettuce is still tender and sweet before it buds out, but you have to hurry this time of year to catch it at its prime stage.
For those of you more inclined to purchasing your salad ingredients, don’t overlook the hardier, more unusual greens like dandelion, frisee, escarole and endive. Applegate’s Whistling Duck Farm, mentioned in this week’s A la Carte, swears by the inclusion of endive in its popular salad mix, for sale next week at the Rogue Valley Growers and Crafters Market in Ashland. The small heads can be expensive, but their crunch is unsurpassed. Plus, individual endive leaves make ideal vehicles for composed salads like tuna, chicken or even Waldorf salad at Easter brunch or other springtime events.
Here’s one more winter-into-spring salad using endive and oranges, which are about as sweet as fresh fruit gets this time of year.
Feta, Endive and Orange Salad
1⁄4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon red-wine vinegar
Salt and pepper, to taste
Superfine sugar, to taste (optional)
2 large oranges, or 3 blood oranges
3 heads of Belgian endive, any damaged outer leaves removed, whole leaves or sliced crosswise into 3⁄4-inch pieces
1 cup loosely packed flat-leaf parsley leaves (from 1 small bunch)
1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves, coarsely chopped if large
1⁄2 very small red onion, sliced as thinly as possible
1⁄3 cup crumbled feta cheese
Scant 2 cups walnut halves
1⁄3 cup drained oil-cured black olives
In a medium bowl, whisk the olive oil with the vinegar until they have more or less emulsified, seasoning to taste with the salt and pepper. Add a pinch of the sugar, if needed, to soften acidity. This makes about 1⁄4 cup dressing; set aside.
With a small sharp knife, preferably serrated, cut rind and pith off the oranges, keeping oranges whole. Slice oranges crosswise into 1⁄4-inch slices and place them in a large salad or mixing bowl. Gently toss in the endive, parsley, oregano and onion. Pour dressing over salad and gently toss to coat. Crumble the feta over top of salad, then sprinkle the walnuts and olives over salad. Serve immediately.
Makes 4 servings.
