This salad is stupidly delicious.
At least once every winter, I cook a lamb tagine with prunes from Claudia Roden’s œuvre (which is actually a revision of an earlier œuvre) The New Book of Middle Eastern Food, and serve this salad with it. I once even made pita bread from scratch, and I count watching those rounds inflate in the oven among the most satisfying home cooking moments of my life.
I am going to get around to the tagine in the next several days, but in the meantime here’s the salad.
Aside from the oranges, this is a pantry salad. You probably already have the spices, garlic, and olives on hand. Heck, you may also have the oranges. You can use whatever variety you like, or a mix. Blood oranges add beautiful color.
La Roden calls for argan oil, a Moroccan specialty, but Wikipedia tells me that this is one of the rarest oils in the world, and that the Argan tree is endangered and under the protection of UNESCO.
So that seems unlikely.
She lists hazelnut, walnut, and sesame oil as acceptable substitutions. To those I would add the toasted almond oil from J. LeBlanc, which is the only nut oil I have on hand at the moment. If you don’t have any nut oils at all, rest assured that olive oil will taste just fine.
The salad is a refreshing accompaniment to spicy stews, tagines, or roasts. You’ll need to serve it in bowls because it’s quite juicy. Warm pita bread, homemade or not, would be welcome.
Orange and Olive Salad
Adapted from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden (Knopf)
4-6 oranges
about 1 t lemon juice
2 T oil (almond, walnut, hazelnut, sesame or olive)
1-2 cloves garlic, peeled and very finely chopped
salt
1/2 t ground cumin
1/2 t paprika
12-15 oil cured black olives
1. Using a sharp knife, cut the top and bottom off of each orange so that it has a flat base to sit on. Working your way around the orange, cut off the peel and pith, going top to bottom with your knife. Using the membrane that divide the fruit as as your guide, carefully cut out clean sections. (The resulting slices are called “supremes” by the way.)
2. Put the orange slices in a bowl with the remaining ingredients and toss gently. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt and lemon if necessary, and then serve at once.
Serves 4
I am all over this – I joined you as fellow prune lover in your last post and actually thought those were prunes in the photo, instead of olives ! Thanks for the recipe, this sounds great. I have several of Claudia Roden’s books – Arabesque is my favorite. They’re all great. Hope to see the tagine — and homemade pita – here on the blog soon !
Meanwhile, I brought back a ton of argan oil from Morocco years ago, and have been wanting to return ever since – perhaps just to get more!
I have been thinking about — and looking for — interesting savory recipes that feature oranges….and whatever. This looks amazing. I’m gonna try with Kalamatas, since I usually always have those on hand. PS I love prunes, too.
For savory orange recipes, orange and jicama with lots of red onion is a favorite with me.
Kerrin: Someone has told me that I can find argan oil at La Grande Epicerie. I’m very curious, though the result with the huile d’amande was so good that I feel no rush.
Cowgirl: I seem to always have kalamatas, too. How does that happen?
Bernie: Everything you said, and a big squeeze of lime!
Having just gotten back from Morocco I’ll pass on the tagine as I’m tagined-out, but the salad looks great! I brought back some argan soap but no oil. Having tasted it though, I think it’s easily replaceable by the ones you suggest.
The argan trees grow in the southwest of Morocco and many of the processors are women’s cooperatives. It’s tedious work and the prices are justified. You can often see goats climbing into the branches of the trees, which don’t grow very high, and I’ve been told that the nuts are processed through their digestive tracks before being used. Yes, that’s a polite way of saying what you think I said.
HEy! Way to go! “Spiffy blog” indeed! You should be writing for the Times every week IMHO – congrats Barb! Pls feel empowered to brag about this – and pitch a feature to them. You’d be great.
whenever my sister makes potato salad, i always eat them in less than a minute or so he he. i just love all sorts of salad. .-`
[...] In Paris it might be served with boiled raisins and chickpeas. I like to serve it with a refreshing orange and olive salad, which also comes from the Roden [...]