CITRUS FOR JANUARY

winter sunshine and blood orange martinis

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CITRUS FOR JANUARY

I find the winter months the hardest ones. The dark mornings and even darker evenings make me tired and I long for the summer and the days when the sun doesn’t sleep till nine pm and I can leave home with just a cardigan. But of all the winter months January is my favourite. Long ago I disengaged with the ‘new year, new you’ stigma. I look at January as a month to ease into. A month to spend an extra hour in bed and treat oneself to extra lovely things like hot chocolate, trips to the cinema and really good socks. But the best thing about January is citrus.

Right now as I write this I have a large green bowl filled with citrus on my table. The first of the blood oranges, a few grapefruits, bobbly unwaxed lemons and leafy clementines that I splashed out on at my veg shop. They bring me joy and in the absence of sunshine, they are the sun!

I’m sharing four recipes this week (to make up for a slightly later than planned return to normal Substack programming…. sorry about that). Two punchy salads which bring all the zing I crave this time of year, my FAVOURITE way to cook salmon when people COME FOR SUPPER, and my recipe for a blood orange martini.

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CITRUS SALAD WITH CHILLI, LIME, AND PINK PEPPERCORNS

The method for this is simple. It’s really the dressing that makes it sing. Pink peppercorns are one of my favourite things to work with. They are more aromatic than black peppercorns and less mouth numbing then Szechwan peppercorns. I find they have an almost fruity heat to them and they are the perfect match with citrus and lime. You can find them at most supermarkets but I often get them in bulk on Amazon. If you’re struggling to find them go for a pinch of dried chilli flakes instead.

I love this as a side alongside baked chicken or fish but it works really well as a starter. You could add a blob of burrata too. Feel free to mix up the citrus depending on what you can find. The key is just to have a mix.

serves 4

• 3 oranges or blood oranges

• 2 red grapefruit

• 1 white grapefruit

• 3 clementines

• 3 tbsp olive oil

• 1 tbsp honey

• 2 birds eye chills, finely chopped

• 1 1/2 tsp pink peppercorns, crushed (plus extra to garnish)

• Juice of 1/2 lime (plus zest to garnish)

Remove the skin of the citrus with a serrated knife. Slice into half centimetre slices and plate neatly over a serving plate mixing up the colours.

Combine together dressing ingredients in a small bowl and pour over the sliced citrus. Sprinkle over a few more crushed pink peppercorns and the zest of a lime.

BLOOD ORANGE, BITTER LEAF, BURRATA AND SIZZLED OLIVE SALAD

Bitter leaves and blood orange make a very fine pair (more on that soon). This is another simple one to assemble but looks fab on the table and is always a winner when entertaining. My advice is to sizzle extra olives as you are bound to snack on some as you work. They are SO good.

serves 4

• 1 head radicchio

• 1 tsp fennel seeds

• Handful large pitted gordal olives

• 2 blood oranges

• Olive oil

• Sea salt

• 1 blob of burrata

Separate, wash and pat dry the leaves of the radicchio.

Toast the fennel seeds gently in a dry frying pan over a gentle heat until they begin to smell fragrant. Transfer to a large bowl.

Tear the olives using your hands. There is no need to be neat about this. The messier the better.

Heat a glug of olive oil in a frying pan and fry the olives for about 3-4 minds either side until golden brown, then transfer to a paper towel lined plate to drain.

Chop away the peel from the blood oranges by chopping the base off each side and rotating the fruit so that you can work on a flat, working your way around it with a serrated knife to remove any pith. Either chop the fruit into segments or disks.

Add any remaining juice from the board to the bowl with the fennel seeds along with a good glug of olive oil and pinch of salt. Stir, then add the radicchio leaves and toss using your hands.

Arrange the leaves onto a serving plate, followed by the blood orange, then tear over the burrata and finish with the sizzled olives. 

BAKED SALMON WITH BLOOD ORANGE, CHILLI, AND CORIANDER SEED

I love the colour of this dish. It’s a real star of the show when entertaining and is one of my go-tos for dinner party gigs too. The blood orange and chilli clash brilliantly against the pink salmon creating a vibrant tangerine coloured oil as the fish cooks. There’s a bit of chopping but then its a toss everything together job. I love this with some jasmine or brown rice.

Serves 4

• 1 tsp whole coriander seed

• 2 blood oranges (or regular if you can’t get hold of them)

• 5 tbsp olive oil

• 3 fat cloves of garlic, thinly sliced

• 1.5 tsp Aleppo chilli pepper flakes (or chilli flakes)

• 1-2 red chillis, seeds removed and cut into match sticks

• pinch of flaky sea salt

• 750g fillet of salmon

• coriander leaves to garnish

Method

Preheat your oven to 250 degrees fan setting.

Place the tsp of coriander seeds into a dry frying pan over a medium heat and toast for about 3 mins until they begin to smell fragrant. Transfer to a pestle and mortar and crush. (You could also use a small bowl and end of a spice jar or rolling pin for this)

Finely slice just one of your blood oranges and make sure the rest of your ingredients are prepared.

Into a large oven proof dish large enough to accommodate the salmon, place the olive oil, finely sliced garlic, coriander seed, red pepper flakes, chopped chillis, finely sliced orange, zest and juice of the remaining orange and a good pinch of salt.

Add the salmon fillet and toss everything together to coat making sure you turn the salmon over a couple of times to ensure it has a good casting of the marinade.

Loosely arrange some of the blood orange on top and bake for 20 mins.

Allow it to rest for a further five mins (it will continue to cook).

Garnish with fresh coriander leaves and serve. This dish is delicious served warm or at room temperature.

Entirely different to the classic dry martini, this is sweet and citrusy and a very good way.

BLOOD ORANGE MARTINI

Serves 2 (increase as necessary)

• 2 oz/60ml blood orange juice (roughly 2 oranges)

• 4 oz/120ml vodka

• 1 oz/2tbsp Cointreau

• A couple of dash of orange bitters

Add all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake and strain into a glass.

If you don’t have a cocktail shaker just add all the ingredients into a jug filled with ice. Stir vigorously then strain and serve

Garnish with a twist of blood orange peel.

January Recipes

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MUSIC TO COOK TO

I’ve been listening to the radio A LOT recently and recently discovered BOOM radio station. You can listen on DAB or online. They play everything from Nina Simone and Elvis to Fleetwood Mac and The Rolling Stones and are a real vibe.

If you’ve got all the way here THANK YOU FOR READING. And if you’re someone who also finds winter hard, I highly recommend going on a citrus spree and filling the biggest bowl you have. I promise, it will give you a zest for life.

BIG LOVE

Alexandra