Wedding Salad or Beet and Grapefruit Salad
Colorful, sweet-tart, packed with veggies and absolutely gorgeous.
I love Thanksgiving. It’s my idea of a dream celebration. Everyone is in the kitchen all day: cooking, hanging out and laughing. Then the whole family gathers together to eat and celebrate some more. That’s the exact vibe I wanted for my wedding. And thanks to very expensive catering quotes, was exactly what I got. I knew that we could make a delicious dinner for 20 for way less than $3000. Instead of doing tastings with caterers, I researched recipes, bought all the groceries necessary and borrowed lots of pots, pans and serving dishes from my in-laws. After the ceremony, we assembled our 20 or so guests in the venue’s professional-sized kitchen and asked them to work together to cook dinner. It all turned out so much better than I could have imagined! This salad was one of my favorite dishes. It’s called beet and grapefruit salad, but I refer to it as wedding salad. It’s so fun to make this now and think back to what a wonderful day that was.
Photography by the wonderful Brandi Potter.
Wedding Salad or Beet and Grapefruit Salad
Serves 4 for a light meal
6 small beets; approximately 2 inches in diameter
2 grapefruit
2 avocados; just barely ripe
3 bunches curly kale
¼ cup roasted shelled pumpkin seeds; more for garnish
1 small shallot; minced
1 clove garlic; minced, resist the temptation to add more
3 sprigs rosemary; removed from woody stem and minced
¼ cup unseasoned rice vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
¼ to ½ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Maldon salt, optional, but fancy
Pot with a lid and large enough to fit the beets
Steamer basket
Cutting board
Chef knife
Salad spinner
Bowl large enough to fit kale
Blender
All of the components of this salad keep beautifully, even the dressed kale. This is perfect to make ahead and eat a few times during the week. The only thing that needs to wait is the avocado, for obvious reasons.
Use olive oil or gloves to protect your hands from staining.
Place a steamer basket and two cups of water in a large pot. Add washed beets and cover with the lid. Turn heat on high, bring water to a boil and steam the beets for 10-15 minutes until they can be pierced with a fork. Set aside to cool. Once cool, peel skin off with a spoon. Coat your hands in some olive oil or wear gloves to protect your hands from staining. Slice beets into ½ inch disks, then slice those disks in half and those halves in half. You should have little rounded triangles. Set aside. The beets can be steamed ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator until you’re ready to make the salad.
Peel grapefruit with a knife, like this (the dull knife in this video really freaks me out). You can cut them into segments if you want or if the membrane really bothers you. It feels wasteful to me, so I slice them the same as the beets: first into ½ inch slices across the equator of the grapefruit, then slice those disks in half and those halves in half. You should have little rounded triangles. Set aside. These can also be prepped ahead of time and stored in the refrigerator until you’re ready to make the salad.
Cut avocado in half and discard the pit. Cutting only the flesh, slice the avocado in half from pole to pole, then slice across the equator into ½ inch slices. Keep avocado in the skin for now. Set aside.
Cut the kale from the stems. Save stems for another use. Wash and spin the kale dry. Working in batches, chop into small bits, aiming for ½ inch pieces or smaller. Set aside in the large bowl.
To make the dressing: add the nuts, rosemary, shallots, garlic, salt, pepper, honey and vinegar to the blender. Blend until smooth, scraping the sides a few times so that all the little bits of nuts become smooth. With the blender on low, drizzle in approximately half of the olive oil. Turn off and taste the dressing on a piece of kale. You’ll probably need more oil and salt. The dressing should be herbaceous, mildly salty, pleasantly tart from the vinegar, creamy from the nuts and oil and just a hint sweet from the honey. Adjust honey, salt, pepper, vinegar and oil until you achieve this balance. Blend again until incorporated.
Add about ¼ cup of the dressing to the kale and mix with your hands, squeezing and massaging to break down the kale. Use the same motion you would use to squeeze the water out of a sponge. Keep going until the kale has wilted quite a bit and is softer and easier to chew. Taste a piece to check. Add more dressing, if necessary, and mix again.
Divide the kale mixture between plates, spreading into a thin layer to cover the whole plate. Divide the beets between the plates, placing in a random manner on top of the kale. Do the same with the grapefruit. And then with the avocado, using a spoon to gently nudge the avocado from the skin. Sprinkle with pumpkin seeds. Sprinkle with maldon salt. Serve.
Swaps:
Kale: any type of kale, arugula, baby kale, any salad green with a bit more structure and heft
Beets: use whichever color you want. Feel free to use pre-cooked and peeled beets. Do not use canned beets
Grapefruit: orange, tangerine, blood orange, or a mix
Pumpkin seeds: pine nuts if you’re rich, sunflower seeds, cashews, macadamia nuts, really any soft nut could work
Rosemary: sage, thyme or a combo of all three is awesome. Sage and rosemary is my favorite version of this dressing but sage can be hard to find at certain times of the year.
Rice vinegar: white wine vinegar, red wine vinegar, sherry vinegar or other mild vinegar
Honey: agave, brown sugar, molasses
Photography by the wonderful Brandi Potter.
Photography by the wonderful Brandi Potter.
