Colorful Orange Salad With Mandarin-Cider Vinaigrette

The first frost came earlier than usual this year — September 15, a hard one, twenty-eight degrees overnight Wednesday. I had known it was coming and harvested everything that could be harvested Tuesday — the last basil cut and hung, the last tomatoes brought in (the Brandywines that were still on the vine I picked green to ripen on the windowsill), the eggplants and peppers all in. By Thursday morning the garden was the wreck a hard frost makes of a summer garden — the squash leaves blackened, the bean vines collapsed, the tomato foliage dark and dead. The frost is always abrupt even when you know it is coming. The summer chapter closes overnight.

The kale and the late carrots and the brussels sprouts came through fine — the cold-tolerant crops doing what they were planted to do — and I will pick from those rows through November or until a sustained freeze ends them. The brussels sprouts will sweeten with each freeze and the late carrots will become candy in the ground over the next month. The end of the summer garden is the beginning of the fall garden, and a Vermont gardener who has only summer crops is a gardener who has not yet figured out the calendar.

Made a green tomato chutney Saturday with the green tomatoes I could not bring inside to ripen — about four pounds of them, chopped, cooked down with onions and apples and ginger and vinegar and brown sugar and mustard seed and a stick of cinnamon, the chutney sweet-tart and complex and excellent on a cheese board. Six half-pints into the canner, processed for ten minutes, set on the counter to seal. The chutney joins the strawberry jam and the dilly beans and the tomato sauce and the pickles in the cellar, the put-by accumulating, the cellar shelves filling.

Anna texted Sunday — she has accepted a small promotion at the agency in Brattleboro, a senior caseworker title with a slight raise and a slightly more focused caseload. She had been considering it for two months and had finally said yes. I texted her back: that is well-earned. She replied with a heart emoji which I find slightly excessive but which I am informed is the standard contemporary response to praise from a grandfather, and the conversation was complete.

The dog has been particularly close this week — following me from room to room, lying at my feet in the evening, sleeping at the foot of the bed. I notice these intensifications and I do not investigate them too closely. He is eight, which is middle-old for a border collie, and the small additional adherences may be the dog reading something in me that I have not yet read in myself, or they may simply be a dog being a dog as winter approaches. Either way, I let him stay close. He has earned it.

The chutney was sealed and on the cellar shelf by Saturday evening, and by Sunday the kitchen smelled of nothing except cold air coming in under the door. After a week of blackened squash leaves and frost-killed foliage and six hours over a hot pot of vinegar and brown sugar, I wanted something that required no canning, no processing, no waiting — something with immediate color and brightness. This orange salad, dressed with a mandarin-cider vinaigrette, answered exactly that need: the apple cider vinegar a quiet nod to the season, the oranges a reminder that not everything bright has to come out of a garden before September 15.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 0 min | Total Time: 15 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

3 large navel oranges, peeled and sliced into 1/4-inch rounds
1 can (11 oz) mandarin orange segments, drained, juice reserved
1/2 small red onion, very thinly sliced
1/4 cup Kalamata olives, pitted and halved
2 tablespoons fresh mint leaves, torn
2 tablespoons pomegranate seeds (optional)
Flaky sea salt, to finish
For the Mandarin-Cider Vinaigrette:
3 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons reserved mandarin juice
1 tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Instructions

Make the vinaigrette. In a small bowl or jar, whisk together the apple cider vinegar, mandarin juice, honey, and Dijon mustard until combined. Slowly drizzle in the olive oil while whisking continuously until the dressing is emulsified. Season with salt and pepper and set aside.
Prepare the oranges. Peel the navel oranges, removing as much of the white pith as possible, then slice into rounds roughly 1/4 inch thick. Arrange the rounds in a single overlapping layer on a wide, flat serving platter.
Build the salad. Scatter the drained mandarin segments evenly over the orange rounds. Distribute the red onion slices and halved olives across the top.
Dress and garnish. Drizzle the mandarin-cider vinaigrette over the entire salad. Finish with the torn mint leaves, pomegranate seeds if using, and a light pinch of flaky sea salt.
Serve. Serve immediately for the brightest presentation. If preparing ahead, refrigerate undressed for up to one hour and add the vinaigrette and garnishes just before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Colorful Orange Salad With Mandarin-Cider Vinaigrette — A Bright Counterpoint to the Cellar Work