Blood Orange, Burrata, and Freekeh Salad

I’ve been known to brag that my compost pile smells like citrus. I do go through quite a lot of citrus fruits in my kitchen, and I’ve never met a type I didn’t like. So, it was no surprise that the new book Citrus: 150 Recipes Celebrating the Sweet and the Sour by Catherine Phipps has a lot of recipes I want to try. And, it’s such a pretty book with a bold, orange-yellow cover and full-page photos of several of the fresh- and zesty-looking dishes. In some cases, the citrus is the main ingredient, in others it’s a necessary flavor component, and the ingredient involved may be the zest, the fruit, or the leaves. I’ll definitely be trying the Barbecued Halloumi in Lemon Leaves as soon as my trees look happy and full of new greenery for the spring. And, the Sprouting Broccoli with Blood Orange Hollandaise is a twist on this sauce that I’ve never thought to try before. The Coconut, Lime, and Lemongrass Chicken Salad with radishes, carrot, and zucchini looks like a winner, and Roast Vegetables with Feta and Orange would be great as a side or a vegetarian main dish. The Desserts chapter has me craving Mandarin Creme Caramel and Blackberry, Orange, and Orange Blossom Clafoutis. There are also recipes for marmalades, jellies, candied zest and peel, and drinks with citrus. Since burrata always stops me in my tracks and since blood orange season is nearing the end, I had try the Blood Orange, Burrata, and Freekeh Salad. 

This salad highlights the blood oranges with pretty slices placed front and center, but there’s also bergamot zest and juice adding flavor to the freekeh. This was my first time using bergamots. They appear late in citrus season, and I feel kind of lucky to have found them the day I was looking. Their fragrance is citrusy-floral and a bit like that of lemon blossoms. If they’re not available, lemon zest and juice is the best substitute. The freekeh was soaked in water, drained, and then cooked with garlic and bergamot zest. Once tender, the bergamot juice was added, and the freekeh was left to stand for a few minutes before being drained. Red onion wedges were sauteed in olive oil, and chard was cooked until just wilted. To serve, the freekeh was spread on a platter, onions and chard were added on top, peeled and sliced blood oranges were added, and pieces of burrata were nestled into place. Last, a drizzle of olive oil went over everything, and I garnished with parsley leaves rather than mint because that’s what I had available in my herb garden. 

Blood oranges with burrata is a wonderful thing, and the chard and nutty freekeh were great with that combination. I quickly fell for the flavor and perfume of bergamots which were a lovely addition to the grain. A lot more citrus pieces will be added to my compost as I cook more from this book, and it’s going to smell amazing. 

Blood Orange, Burrata and Freekeh Salad 
Recipe excerpted with permission from Citrus: 150 Recipes Celebrating the Sweet and the Sour by Catherine Phipps, published by Quadrille April 4, 2017. 

Serves 4 

100g / 2/3 cup freekeh 
600ml / 2 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock 
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped 
1 tsp finely grated bergamot zest (or lemon zest) 
Juice of 1/2 bergamot (or lemon) 
1 tbsp olive oil, plus extra for drizzling 
2 small red onions, sliced vertically into thin wedges 
A large bunch of chard, shredded 50ml / 
3 1/2 tbsp water 
2 large blood or blush oranges, peeled and sliced, any juice squeezed from the peel reserved 
1 large or 2 small burrata 
A handful of mint leaves 
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper 

This is a very happy confluence of ingredients; smoky nuttiness from the freekeh, earthiness from the chard, a creamy sweetness from the burrata, all pulled together by the fragrant, sweet-sour citrus. The bergamot is purely optional as its flavour is subtle here, but if you can, please do: bergamots are still in season (just) when blood oranges come in, so it should be possible to find them. Use lemon zest instead if not. 

First cook the freekeh. Soak it in plenty of cold water for 5 minutes, then drain and rinse thoroughly. Put in a medium saucepan with the stock, garlic and zest. Season with salt, then bring to the boil and leave to simmer for 15–20 minutes until cooked – it should be plumped up but still with some bite. Add the bergamot juice and leave to stand for a few minutes before straining. 

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan. Add the onion wedges and sauté over a medium heat until starting to turn translucent – you want them softened but not completely collapsed. Add the chard, along with the water, and cook over a gentle heat until the chard has wilted down and the stems are still al dente. Season with salt and pepper. 

Arrange the freekeh over a large platter and top with the onions and chard. Pour over any reserved juice from the blood oranges – there should be a fair bit. Break up the burrata over the salad, then top with the orange slices and mint leaves. Drizzle over a little olive oil. 

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Broccoli with Burrata, Pine Nuts, and Warm Vinaigrette

I usually associate burrata with summer, but that's only because it goes so perfectly with ripe tomatoes and basil. It's available at any time of year though, so I changed my thinking about it after trying this warm, wintry broccoli salad. I've had the page with this dish marked in Sunday Suppers at Lucques since I first read the book, and I knew it was going to be good. How could it not be with blanched broccoli which happens to one of my favorite vegetables, creamy, fresh burrata, a warm vinaigrette with garlic, chiles, anchovies, lemon, and butter, and a crunchy, toasted breadcrumb and pine nut topping? This is a filling salad. So, if you're serving it as a first course, you'll want to follow it with something on the lighter side. Or, it also makes a great lunch all by itself. As usual with dishes from this book, there are a few steps involved, but the result is worth every bit of chopping and every dirty dish.

The first step is to toast the breadcrumbs and pine nuts, and the suggested procedure involved using two baking sheets to toast them separately. I tossed the breadcrumbs with some olive oil on one side of a big sheet pan, and let them get a head start in the warm oven. Then, I added the pine nuts to the other side of the same sheet pan, and toasted them in the oven for a few minutes while the breadcrumbs reached a good level of toastedness. Once removed from the oven and cool, half of the pine nuts were chopped, and they were combined with the whole pine nuts, the toasted breadcrumbs, some chopped parsley, and salt and pepper. I left all of that on the sheet pan to avoid using a bowl for the mixture. Next, broccoli was blanched and drained. I let mine drain in a colander rather than spreading it out on yet another sheet pan as was suggested. The warm vinaigrette was supposed to have been started in a saucepan and then finished in a saute pan. I skipped the saucepan and used the saute pan from start to finish. The recipe calls for seven tablespoons of olive oil and six tablespoons of butter which seemed like way too much of both to me. I used maybe three tablespoons of olive oil and two of butter. They were combined in the saute pan over low heat, and a minced anchovy and chopped dried red chile were added. Once the anchovy had melted into the oil and butter, minced garlic and thyme leaves were added followed by chopped shallots and lemon juice. The drained broccoli was then tossed in the warm vinaigrette in the saute pan. Last, the burrata was sliced and the salad was plated with the total number of pots and pans used reduced by one half.

This was a bit of a process even after simplifying a few steps, but because of the contrast of the fresh, cool, mild cheese with the robust flavors of the warm vinaigrette and broccoli, I wouldn't change anything else about it. Happily for me, burrata isn't just for summer anymore.

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Pickled Butternut Squash with Burrata

Pickled pumpkin has such a nice ring to it, and that’s what this was supposed to be. The page for this salad had been marked since March when I first got the book My Favorite Ingredients. I had waited months to try it, and when I had an extra butternut squash and some tomatoes on hand from our CSA, I went for it. With a mix of both winter squash and tomatoes, it’s a perfect cross-over season dish. I’ve enjoyed everything I’ve tried from this book. Interesting flavor combinations and simple, seasonal dishes keep me coming back to it. The chapters in the book are organized by ingredient, and this salad is from the vinegar chapter. The butternut squash was pickled in red wine vinegar, and the salad was finished with aged balsamic. The vinegars were balanced by the sweetness of the squash and slow-roasted tomatoes and the beautiful, creamy, fresh burrata.

To begin, you should pop the tomatoes in the oven since they slow-roast for three to four hours. Of course, this can be done in advance, and the tomatoes can be stored in the refrigerator. Halved tomatoes were sprinkled with salt and pepper and roasted at 250 degrees F until shriveled with concentrated flavor. For the pickles, sugar was combined with red wine vinegar, a bottle of dry, white wine, some bay leaves, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, a bunch of thyme, and a hot chile. The mixture was warmed until the sugar dissolved while the butternut squash was seeded and sliced. The peel was left on the squash to keep the thin pieces intact while cooking. The squash slices were placed in the pickling liquid where they simmered for about an hour and then were allowed to cool. I picked the squash pickles out of the liquid and strained the liquid back over the pickles before storing them in the refrigerator. Readying the tomatoes and pickles took some time, but it was mostly waiting time. Then, putting together the salad was a breeze. The dressing for the salad was a mix of fresh oregano leaves chopped with some salt and combined with lemon juice and olive oil. The pickled squash and roasted tomatoes were arranged on plates and topped with burrata, that was drizzled with the oregano dressing, and then aged balsamic was dribbled on the plate.

This was my kind of salad since I like just about any kind of pickle. The butternut squash slices had softened a little but retained some texture, and you could cook them more or less to achieve whatever level of crispness you prefer. As they were, they provided nice textural contrast with the roasted tomatoes and burrata. And, there were plenty of leftover pickles. They're great for snacking straight out of the refrigerator.

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Nectarine and Tomato Salad with Proscuitto and Buffalo Mozzarella

I waited and waited for perfect tomatoes and juicy, ripe nectarines to arrive and for my own basil to grow. All those things came to be last weekend, and I was able to put together this lovely, summer salad. Once again, this is from the book My Favorite Ingredients. I wasn’t kidding when I said I marked several pages. As you see in the title, this salad is intended to include prosciutto, and Kurt’s portion did indeed have some in it. I don’t eat red meat, so I left it off my plate, but Kurt commented that having a little prosciutto is never a bad thing. For the cheese, I was torn between a very nice buffalo mozzarella and burrata. In the end, I used a little of both in the salads. The tomatoes, nectarines, and cheeses were drizzled with basil oil with garlic, and then everything was dotted with aged balsamic. Just the other day, I brought home an eighteen year aged balsamic from Con’Olio which is a locally-owned olive oil and balsamic vinegar shop with incredible varieties of both, and this was a perfect use for it. This is exactly the kind of dish in which quantities and exact ingredients don’t matter so much, but the quality of each item on the plate is everything.

I’ve made basil oil before, but this version was a little different. The basil wasn’t blanched this time, and the raw leaves were pureed with chopped garlic. Once they were minced, olive oil was added. For the salad, I used nectarines and an heirloom tomato which were simply cut into wedges, and I added yellow cherry tomatoes which were cut in half. The nectarines and tomatoes were tossed with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. The mozzarella and burrata were cut into big pieces and plated, the nectarine and tomatoes were spooned on and around the cheeses, the basil oil was spilled on top of it all, and the aged balsamic was dribbled here and there. I added a few basil leaves, and Kurt’s salad was adorned with prosciutto.

It is really just a caprese salad with added hits of sweet and salty from fruit and cured meat. But, when the ingredients are as good as they can be, it’s a salad that’s perfection. I couldn’t decide which cheese I preferred. Both were excellent with the mix of things on the plate. I did decide that this could be my dinner day in and day out for the rest of the summer.

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