Seriously Simple: Bright ingredients create a refreshing spring salad
This first-course salad is best in the spring months, when the vivid, maroon-colored blood oranges, now grown commercially in California, make their appearance. Blood oranges have a distinctively rich orange flavor, with raspberry overtones, that has been featured in Mediterranean diet for centuries.
This update on the classic grapefruit and avocado combination includes thinly sliced white mushrooms, which offer a pleasant textural contrast. You can serve this as a first course salad or make it into a main course salad with shredded cooked chicken breast, fresh crabmeat or shrimp. Serve a baguette on the side with herbed butter.
Blood Orange, Mushroom and Avocado Salad
Serves 4 to 6
For the dressing:
1 medium shallot, finely chopped
Juice of 1 medium blood orange (about 1/3 cup)
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
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