Willamette Valley

Avocado, roasted blood orange, and kumquat salad with citrus, cardamom, and rosewater dressing

This dish tied in the notes of citrus from the wine and layered in the notes of cardamom and rosewater.  The avocado added a bit of fat and creaminess.  I will admit that this was my first time working with cardamom and rose water and I am kind of swoony about it!  The fragrance of this salad made me a little weepy with joy. Scent memory is a thing, and I was transported back to my mother’s rosebushes.  The aromatics were wonderful.

On top of that, the dish is a real stunner.  The colors really pop and you get multiple textures.

I chose blood oranges, mostly for the drama.  I knew I was going to roast them and I loved the thought of them coming out so dark and dramatic.  The juice also lent a lovely deep color to the dressing.

So I sliced the blood orange and kept the ends to juice.  The slices got tossed in olive oil, salt, and pepper and roasted for 15 minutes at 425.  In the meantime, I worked on the rest of the dish.

The dressing was a citrus mix of lemon, lime, and blood orange juice, then olive oil, of course, salt, pepper, honey, cardamom, and rose water.  The cardamom I had in pods which I crushed with the flat side of a knife and popped out the seeds.  Since we were filming, I went the pretty route (although it takes more muscle) and used the mortar and pestle to grind the cardamom seeds.  You can easily toss them in a spice grinder or your coffee grinder, just wash it!

I stirred things up in a bowl and as usual, was not happy with the emulsification of the olive oil, so I used my favorite trick and threw it in a jar and shook it!

I sliced up a shallot into thin strips and tossed the shallot and roasted blood oranges (once they had cooled) with ½ of my dressing.

The rest went into the bottom of my salad bowl.  I tossed my greens in on top. I used red leaf lettuce and some sliced purple cabbage and mixed them with the dressing.  I sliced up my avocado to lay out on top, the blood oranges were next, followed by the shallot and sliced kumquats.

I finished the dish with a sprinkle of sliced almonds and dried rose petals.

With the Utopia Chardoannay, I found that the wine popped the rosewater note.  It was bright but not overpowering and balanced well with the salad, amping up the brighter notes, like the kumquats, and blending beautifully with the rest.