Shredded salad with grapefruit and citrus dressing

Salads are always welcome as part of lunch or dinner, and sometimes they make lunch or dinner. This is a refreshing winter salad incorporating the segments and juice of a pink grapefruit into both the salad and the dressing.

The salad itself is a blend of winter vegetables and greens, meaning it does not call for tender summer salad leaves but rather for sturdier vegetables like green and red cabbage, romaine, red peppers, celery, carrots and whatever else is in your fridge when you make it.

Cut the vegetables into similar size ribbons, they don’t all have to be the same, and mix them with the vinaigrette in the bowl.

Cut the segments of the grapefruit over a bowl, reserving all the juices, and use the juice as part of the dressing, adding lemon or lime juice to get the right oil and acid balance. A little sweetener like honey or agave is nice with this dressing, not too much, just a hint.

I know we tend to get hung up about quantities and exact recipes and the classic quantities for a dressing is 3 parts oil to one part vinegar, but why not do away with the rules and just add a little bit at a time, tasting as you go, until you reach the balance that is right for your palate. What can happen? You can always correct it.

This has been my go to salad here in Mexico this winter, with variations depending on what I have in the fridge. If you have radicchio and endive, by all means add them in and if you’d like to top it with candied nuts I may come over to have a salad bowl with you.

Enjoy.

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Ingredients:

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Quantities are approximate:

3 cups shredded crispy romaine or another sturdy lettuce

1 cup green cabbage, thinly sliced into ribbons

1 cup red cabbage, thinly sliced

1 carrot, sliced thinly on the diagonal

Celery rib with leaves, chopped

1/2 an apple, sliced thin

1 red pepper, cut into thin sticks

1 red grapefruit, segments removed, juice reserved

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Grapefruit dressing:

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Juice from the grapefruit

Juice from a small lime or 1/2 a lemon

1/3 cup olive oil

salt and pepper

A drizzle of honey or agave

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Directions:

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Mix all the salad ingredients except grapefruit in a bowl until nicely combined.

Mix the dressing ingredients, tasting to achieve a balance between oil, acid and sweet.

Drizzle the dressing over the salad and mix well.

Scatter the grapefruit segments over.

Serve immediately.

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