Recipe: Spinach-Orange Salad
My daughter Francesca helped me for the first time in the kitchen, plucking the leaves of stems of spinach. After a few pulls, inspired by her favorite video The Super Duper Sleuths (where Tigger gets super strength from eating raw spinach) she started nibbling at the leaves! Luckily, I'd washed them first.
The spinach we buy is from our friend Len's Baguio farmers' cooperative. It's organic, and seems to taste better and keep longer than the non-organic. Perhaps pesticides and lack of freshness are responsible for spinach's image as a yucky vegetable in the West. Wilted spinach--wilted the natural way and not in a cooking process--tends to develop an astringent taste. The fresh organic leaves we consume have just a hint of bitterness, just enough to perk up the taste buds.
Spinach has been a Falgui family favorite for years. It was a staple in my diet when I was pregnant with my daughter. In the effort to avoid the fat in red meat, we had a running order for spinach to add iron to my diet. I've amassed a number of spinach recipes as a result.
But the one I was making yesterday was a relatively new creation, something I've recently gotten addicted to and oh so simple. It was a raw spinach salad with mandarin orange slices and cashew nuts.
I was inspired to make this after tasting the pomegranate vinaigrette dressing my husband's student gave him. The taste of the dressing reminded me of that used in a heart-healthy salad in Pancake House, using leafy lettuce and a variety of fruits. But there was no lettuce to be had--our corner grocery rarely stocks it. So I thought of using spinach.
The cashew nuts I had at the time were large Thai ones, which I'd toasted till reddish brown. I thought I'd overdone it, but they tasted so much better that way.
So here are the ingredients needed to make this salad: spinach, mandarin orange segments, cashew nuts, pomegranate dressing or a similar kind of fruity vinaigrette, freshly ground black pepper and olive oil. Everything except for the cashew nuts, must be tossed together then chilled. Add cashew nuts just before serving. Then serve and enjoy this refreshing repast, a complete meal for a dieter in sufficient quantity.
Unfortunately, the dressing is a bit tart for my two-year-old, but she enjoyed eating the separate ingredients.
Meanwhile my husband and I enjoyed the delicate blend of flavors and textures. There is a balance between sweet and tart, astringent and oily, crisp and juicy that keeps the experience of eating it interesting. You can add other ingredients--I put some leftover fried bangus (milkfish) and that tasted fine.
Well-toasted cashew nuts are best, I've found, so they don't get soggy. Fortunately, my daughter loves cashew soft or hard. The length of chilling time depends on how crisp you want it. Thirty minutes will do if you want it perfectly crisp, even less if all your ingredients (except the cashews and pepper!) are already well-chilled before you make it.
The unique blend of ingredients of this salad makes it a suitable accompaniment to any kind of salty dish, whether Filipino, Asian, or Western. Saltiness is perhaps the flavor that balances it out perfectly--if you'll notice there's no additional salt in the salad, though you may add it if you wish. After all, this is a rather freewheeling dish to make. If you'll notice, I made no recommendations for the proportions of the ingredients. It's all up to you to make it your own.
