Seasonal ingredients. A need for vitamins and the craving for a light meal. Our chef at La Cucina Italiana in Milan, Joëlle Nedèrlants, created a special salad – made with both blood oranges and blonde oranges – for this very reason. Her recipe has everything we need right now and better yet, Joëlle made this recipe especially for us. Let's make it together!
Our Recipe: Orange Salad with Artichokes
Ingredients:
1 lb of artichokes
2 organic blood oranges
2 organic blonde oranges
20 taggiasca olives
4-5 green olives
Parsley
Basil
Garlic leaves (if you have your own garden)
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
White vinegar
1 lemon
Pepper
Method:
Clean the artichokes and cut them into quarters. Transfer to a bowl with water and lemon.
After soaking in the lemon-water, transfer them to a small pot with ½ cup of vinegar, 2 cups water, 2 sprigs of fresh parsley and salt.
Bring to a boil, cooking the artichokes in the mixture for about 12 minutes. Drain and let cool.
Drizzle some olive oil over the artichokes.
Slice the oranges and add them to a salad of olives, chopped herbs, artichokes, and grated lemon zest. Season with oil, salt, and pepper.
This is a super fresh and delicious salad to eat as a side dish or even as an appetizer!
Joëlle's secret
What makes this salad special is not only the way the ingredients are used but also the variety of vegetables and fruit that Joëlle has chosen. As you can see in the list of ingredients, this salad is prepared with two varieties of oranges, two different olive varieties, and it’s also enriched with the flavors of different herbs.
The same principle can inspire other rich and tasty recipes – even ones that are pretty far from a salad! For example, pasta with fresh tomato sauce would taste even better if we used yellow, red and green cherry tomato varieties. Or if we’re making a pizza, we can experiment with toppings: a simple margherita pizza, for example, would be extra-special if we add some quality mozzarella di bufala (the full slices, not the shredded version!).