Home › Fancy Dishes › Orange Salad
Orange Salad
Take half a dozen sweet oranges; peel, then cut into thin slices; lay the slices in a glass dish; sprinkle with sugar, then oranges again, alternating, until all have been used. Squeeze over this the juice of three oranges, pouring over the whole a glass of good wine, being very generous with the sugar.
A simple macerated orange dish that depends almost entirely on how the fruit is cut and how long it sits. Two vague measures in the original need pinning down.
- "A glass of wine"In books of this period a wine glass is a small measure, usually reckoned at about 2 fl oz, though some sources give as much as 4, not a modern 6 oz pour. A sweet fortified wine such as sherry, Madeira, Marsala or a muscat suits the dish well; the original specifies only "good wine."
- Nine oranges in allSix for slicing and three more for juice. Navels or other seedless eating oranges work best; blood oranges give a better colour in a glass dish.
- Peel to the fleshThe hinge of the dish. Cut away the white pith with the peel rather than pulling the skin off by hand, then slice crosswise into rounds about a quarter inch thick and lift out any seeds. Pith left on turns bitter as the fruit sits in sugar and wine.
- "Being very generous with the sugar"The original asks for a heavy hand, so at least half a cup of superfine sugar over nine oranges, scattered between the layers. Superfine or caster dissolves more readily in cold juice than granulated.
- Let it macerateThe recipe gives no standing time. Cover and chill at least an hour so the sugar draws out the juice and the wine loses its raw edge; four hours is better, but past a day the slices go limp.
- Glass dish is not decorationLayered fruit was meant to be seen, and orange juice with wine will pick up a metallic taste in tin or aluminium. Glass or glazed pottery only.
- Yield and servingServes about six as a light dessert, spooned into shallow bowls with the syrup. Sponge fingers, plain cake or a spoonful of whipped cream go well with it.
Sliced oranges steeped in sugar and sweet wine belong to a long European line of fruit compotes and salads that arrived at the table in glass to show off the layers, and similar dishes turn up under names like oranges au vin. By 1900 rail transport and the Florida and California groves had brought sweet oranges within reach of ordinary households, yet a dish of nine of them, sugared heavily and doused in good wine, would still have read as a small extravagance rather than everyday food. The technique is the oldest part of it: sugar draws juice from the cut fruit and makes its own syrup, so no cooking is needed.