Pink Grapefruit and Watercress Salad

Recipe by The View From the Great Island

This unique Pink Grapefruit and Watercress Salad is delicious and packed with nutrition. I grew up with a meat and potatoes kind of mom.  She was a great cook, but she specialized in chops, meatloaf, mashed potatoes, that kind of stuff.  We did have salads, but they tended to be diced iceberg and cucumbers.  With Wishbone dressing, of course.  There was one time however, when all that was turned on its head.  It was when she came to visit after my first daughter was born.  She was there waiting for us when we arrived home from the hospital.  We were completely bedraggled and exhausted, clutching our new little treasure in our arms, and the first thing my mother did was make me a huge watercress salad.  I have no idea where she got the notion, or even where she got the watercress, but let me tell you that salad was the most utterly invigorating, life-affirming meal I’ve ever eaten.  Maybe it was the exhaustion of childbirth, or the stress of trying to breastfeed, or maybe it was because, in the midst of  having to deal with being a mother myself for the first time, my mother was feeding me… I …

Ingredients

• for the salad
• 2 red or pink grapefruits
• 1 bunch of watercress (about 2 handfuls)
• 1 small head red Belgian endive
• 2 large handfuls of baby spinach
• ½ small red onion,
• 1 handful fresh basil leaves, torn or left whole if they are small
• dressing
• 1 cup fresh pink grapefruit juice (from the grapefruits, above)
• ½ tsp hot chili pepper flakes
• 4 tbsp olive oil ((divided))
• 1 tsp honey
• juice of 1/2 a lemon
• 1 tsp sumac
• of salt

Method

1. Cut off one end of the grapefruits and run a small serrated knife along the rind to remove it. Cut in between each of the membranes to remove the segments of fruit. Set the fruit in a colander to drain over a plate. Squeeze the remains of each grapefruit to get all of the juice out of it. Gather any juice that has drained from the segments, and put it all together in a small saucepan. There should be about a cup.
2. Add the chili pepper to the juice and boil the juice down until it is a thick syrup. This shouldn't take too long, maybe 15 minutes or so.
3. When it is thick, combine it with the rest of the dressing ingredients in a small jar and give it a vigorous shaking until it has emulsified.
4. Meanwhile assemble the salad ingredients in a large bowl, drizzle the dressing over it, toss lightly, and serve.

View the recipe instructions at The View From the Great Island