I'd had a beautiful blood orange salad as a starter at Prego, our wonderful local Italian, which inspired me to create this beautiful salad.
As far as I can tell, the term blush is purely a marketing term for blood oranges, so either will do! Although you can cut them into segments, cutting them across the middle makes for a very pretty salad.
I love both pistachios and mint in salads, and they work really well with the chicory and orange. The pomegranate seeds add a sweetness to the dish and a jewel like pop of colour.
Pomegranate molasses make for a beautiful rich dressing that is lovely on this salad, but also good with other combinations such as
cumin spiced carrot, feta and almond.
Serves 4 as a starter or 2 for lunch
For the salad:
One head of red chicory
Two blood oranges
Handful of fresh mint leaves
Handful of roasted, salted, shelled pistachios
Pomegranate seeds
For the dressing:
2 tablespoons of red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons of pomegranate molasses
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon of honey (optional)
6 tablespoons of rapeseed oil
Seasoning
Method
- Remove any brown or damaged leaves from the chicory.
- Carefully cut the chicory leaves from the base and arrange on a plate.
- Use a sharp knife to remove the peel from the oranges.
- Slice the oranges horizontally to obtain beautiful circles. Arrange over the chicory leaves.
- Roughly smash or chop the pistachios and sprinkle over the top of the salad, along with the mint leaves and pomegranate seeds.
- Drizzle over the dressing.
