Makes: 1 serving
Salad:
2 big handfuls of baby spinach
2 tbsp walnuts
2 tbsp crumbled blue cheese
1 large pink grape fruit, cut into segments
Dressing:
1/4 cup cranberry juice
1/4 cup pink grapefruit juice
1/2 cup olive oil
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
1 shallot, finely minced
- First make the dressing. Whisk together the cranberry juice, grapefruit juice, olive oil, sugar, salt, and shallot. If you've never used shallots before, they look a little bit like a really small onion and they have a very mild onion flavor. Sometimes they're sold in bulk or they might be sold in a little mesh bag of four or five. This is what they look like:
- Once the dressing is made, set it aside.
- Now toast the walnuts. Place them in a dry pan over medium heat. Swirl them around in the pan until they start to brown and become fragrant. Remove from the heat.
- Assemble the salad. Start with a bed of the spinach; top it with the toasted walnuts, blue cheese, and grapefruit segments.
- Drizzle the salad dressing over the salad. The leftover dressing can be kept in the refrigerator for up to two weeks.
Ok, time for some science. When making a vinaigrette like the one above, you're creating an emulsion. An emulsion is a suspension of one liquid in another - in the case of salad dressing, that would be the suspension of the vinegar in the oil. When creating an emulsion, it helps to have emulsifiers - that is something that helps the suspension stay together. With bottled salad dressing, you will usually see xanthan gum in there as the emulsifier. However, you can also use any kind of chopped vegetables as an emulsifier (hence all the little bits of veggies that you see floating in Italian dressing). With our grapefruit vinaigrette, the minced shallot acts as the emulsifier, helping the dressing stay together. The more you know!
