Radish & blood orange salad
This recipe is part of Ugly Vegetable Winter – weird winter vegetables that are delicious, locally grown, and often ignored.
Radishes are delicious, crisp, sweet – and a bit peppery. They pair perfect with bright citrus and look stunning with blood orange. This is an easy, beautiful dish that’s quick to make. It’s a show stopper for a dinner party.
Ingredients
A side dish for 4 or a meal for 2. Scales up easily!
3–4 winter radish (500-650g) 2 blood oranges
2 tbsp chopped mint
3 tbsp good olive oil
Salt and pepper
Ingredient notes:
You can use any large winter radish, such as white radish (pictured here), watermelon radish, or even daikon.
If you don’t like mint you can use cilantro or parsley. Sometimes I use green onion!
By “good olive oil” I mean one you like the taste of. There are many “finishing” olive oils that are inexpensive but great quality. Look for flavour descriptions like “fruity” or “peppery.” You can also using your regular olive oil, but I find it really makes a difference!
Method
Slice and season the radish
Peel the radish – they can be a bit hard to scrub all the dirt off of. Slice the radish thinly, around 1/8”, with a knife or a mandoline. Add the radish slices to a large bowl. Add 2tbsp olive oil, salt, and pepper.
Zest the oranges and add to the bowl.
Finely chop the herbs, add to the bowl, and toss the radish.
Slice the orange
Cut the orange peel off by slicing 1/4” off the top and bottom of the orange. With your knife, follow the shape of the flesh inside to remove the peel, pith, and outer membrane of the orange. To get a nice spherical shape, take your time cutting and do many smaller cuts. Slice the oranges as thin as you can without the pieces breaking apart.
Assemble the salad
Layer the radishes and oranges, overlapping them. Continue layering until complete, around 3 layers on a 10” dinner plate. This can be put together on a large platter for a group or individual plates.
Once finished, top with the remaining 1 tbsp olive oil, flakey salt, and freshly ground black pepper.
Variations + turn into a meal
Other crisp-sweet produce like kohlrabi, apples, pears (particularly Asian pears), and fennel make great additions in this salad.
To turn this into a meal, add crumbled feta cheese.