Just in time for Thanksgiving, too. This salad/side dish goes perfectly with all the other holiday eats and is a nice variation on an old stand by. Plus you can really play around with it, adding jicama for even more crunch, or lots more walnuts to turn it into a main lunch meal, for example. Or toss in left over turkey chunks. It’s the curry that changes this old, boring familiar into something very different and just full of possibilities. I tried it without the endive or romaine or radishes and it was just fine. You can have fun playing with this one.
Speaking of which, what goes astonishingly well with this curried salad, believe it or not, is a dab of home made cranberry sauce on each forkful. Fresh cranberries are in the market now. They freeze well for more sauce later. Below is a recipe with a new wrinkle. Hope you’ll all have a wonderful Thanksgiving. Recipes from the L.A. Times and Parade.
Waldorf salad with curried mayonnaise dressing.
½ - 2/3 cup mayonnaise, to taste (can also try plain yogurt if you’re not into mayo)
¾ tsp curry powder
¼ tsp powdered ginger
1 tbl plus 2 tsp fresh lemon juice, to taste
1 crisp, sweet apple, such as Fuji
½ c or more walnut halves
1 c sliced celery, sliced on the diagonal
½ small fennel bulb, finely diced
1/3 c golden raisins
1 Belgian endive, outer broken leaves removed, and thinly sliced crosswise
4 romaine lettuce leaves from the hearts, thinly sliced crosswise
¼ c. celery leaves from the heart, coarsely chopped
4 radishes, cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced
1 tbl chopped fresh flat leaf parsley
¼ tsp cracked black pepper
1 tbl minced fresh chives.
Mix together mayo, curry powder, ginger and lemon juice, core and peel apple (or leave skin on for color ) and dice into medium small chunks. Add all the other ingredients and toss with the mayo and spices. Garnish with chives.
Cranberry Sauce
2 bags (12 oz each) fresh cranberries
1 cup orange juice
1 cup apricot jam
¾ cup sugar
½ tsp ginger
1/3 lb dried apricots, finely diced (or could try golden raisins)
Stir all the ingredients together in a large, heavy pot and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium and cook, stirring, until the berries pop and the sauce starts to thicken – it will thicken much more as it cools – about 8 minutes. Cool to room temperature, cover and chill.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
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2 comments:
Curry is a great additive transformer to so many things, deviled eggs, potato salad, pun-kin soup…
Speaking of playing with food…” You can have fun playing with this one. “
Starting with;
2 bags (12 oz each) fresh cranberries
1 cup orange juice
1 cup apricot jam
¾ cup sugar
½ tsp ginger
1/3 lb dried apricots, finely diced (or could try golden raisins)
I'm seeing the Cranberry Apricot recipe posted, as a basic stock recipe. The equivalent to a basic vegetable soup stock, but in a sweet rather then savory world.
The kind of perfect mix of sweet and sour and zing that can be tampered with, but has to have the basic proportions kept intact for a harmonious home.
Cranberries - basic undertone; unique, assertive, not sweet, tart, a hint of bitter.
Apricots - counterbalance; sweet and sour combined. More concentrated flavor in a smaller package.
A marriage that can last, that.
Orange Juice - A melodic repeat, Tart, Sour, almost Bitter, and mostly Sweet.
The liquid go between, running back and forth between the flavors in the other fruits, like a child who cannot stay till in its seat.
Wise, well travelled, Grandpa Ginger- The zing, the zest, the spice, the foreign element that defines the self.
What could substitute for ginger? Nothing really, but in a worst case scenario, the zest of a fresh orange will do.
Grandma Sugar- honestly Sweet and nothing else.
Apricot Jam, a sweet binder with pectin, a more mature version of the Apricots. Slows the liquidity of the orange. Like a live in mother in law that has an apricot bias but supports the Cranberry-Apricot marriage. Would a Marmalade or Orange Jam work as substitute?
Golden raisins? Fit into the family like a neighbor who has a spare seat set for them, in case they drop in before they go to their more formal main thanksgiving event (held in the Waldorf Salad Crystal Bowl Ballroom).
Speaking of neighbors, why not open the back door and invite in some rhubarb stalks cubed small. Those tart rhubarbs rub some people the wrong way, so they may need some more stewing first. Well stewed, they will get along well with Mother in law-Apricot Jam, famously, as they have the same consistency.
Left over Sauce? Won’t happen, but you could add pectin and turn it into Cranberry-Apricot Jam.
Oooo, rhubarb too. Woa, I froze a couple of bags of fresh cranberries, so when my rhubard starts re-growing, I"m gonna try that. Ooooo. Thanks for the lyrical input.
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