Winter warmers

Salads that get the blood moving

By Kathy Gunst

THERMODYNAMIC: Jay Villani mixes fresh winter spinach, creamy Danish blue cheese, toasted walnuts, and red onions to keep you warm at Local 188.

The radio said, with the wind chill factor, the temperature in downtown Portland was three-below-zero. Sitting in our parked car with the heat blasting, I suggested we use the cell phone to call Fore Street, where we had reservations. “Let’s ask them to bring the food to us, put on some good music, and have dinner right here in the front seat.”

My husband said: “Button up and get out of the car.” We walked into Fore Street, took a table directly across from a roaring wood-burning oven, and ordered some hearty red wine to get our blood circulating again.

But the warmth really began to spread when the first course arrived. No, we hadn’t chosen to begin our meal with a soup or stew. Rather it was a salad that allowed us to transcend the cold: winter greens, toasted walnuts, and thin shavings of Parmesan cheese delicately tossed with a lemony vinaigrette and drizzled with white truffle oil. The arugula and radicchio filled my mouth with lively, bracing flavors. The greens were deftly balanced by the earthy truffle oil, the richness of the walnuts, and the superbly fresh Parmesan cheese. With the lifting of a fork winter became a season to celebrate rather than simply endure.

Restaurants all over the city are offering winter salads. If you’re lucky you’ll find the orange, fennel, radicchio and olive salad with thin shavings of sliced sheep’s milk feta on the menu at Street and Co. Sous-chef Allison Reid explains: “Oranges are so sweet right now and the fennel is crisp and thinly sliced. The kalamata olives are buttery and biting and the sheep’s milk feta isn’t salty, but creamy. All the salad needs is a fruity olive oil drizzled over the top and the sweet orange juice will do the rest.”

Reid says Street and Co. chef Abby Harmon loves creating salads for winter. “Sometimes we’ll just sauté mushrooms and place them hot on raw spinach,” she says. “The mushroom juices just wilt the greens and create a wonderful salad. Or we’ll do a winter take on a Caesar salad by cooking anchovies slowly until they get nutty, and then mixing them into an aioli. The nutty anchovy garlic mayonnaise is tossed with crisp romaine leaves, garlic croutons, lemon juice and thin shavings of Parmesan cheese.”

At Local 188, chef/owner and artist Jay Villani says in the winter “when everything is drab and dreary you want to tantalize people’s tastes in the opposite direction. Salads bring people places.” Villani says that most Americans tend to think “that salad just means lettuce. But there are salads from around the world. It’s a great way to teach people about other cultures.” Local 188’s most popular salad of the season combines fresh winter spinach, creamy Danish blue cheese, toasted walnuts, and red onions. Other cold-weather salads include vegetables sautéed in olive oil and garlic and tossed with a Spanish sherry wine vinaigrette; and a roasted red pepper and roasted artichoke salad.

How can you transcend winter at home using your salad bowl? You’d be surprised at the possibilities. The key to winter salads, like dressing properly for the cold, is layering. Start with greens — pungent, fresh, and peppery.

Belgian endive has a clean, crisp flavor that can be enjoyed raw, grilled, or roasted. At Café Uffa, chef Jackie Pierce grills whole endive, creating a soft, buttery skin with a heightened, pleasing bitter flavor. The grilled endive is then served with pear slices, candied walnuts, and Gorgonzola cheese on top of mesculin greens.

Arugula, with it’s bracing, peppery flavor, withstands cold, and even snow, making it an ideal winter salad ingredient. Top it with creamy white beans, cubes of prosciutto, and toss with nothing more than fresh lemon juice and olive oil. Add thin slices of apples or pears; along with shavings of Parmesan cheese, goat cheese, or blue cheese; and croutons.

Frisse, or curly endive, is a classic green served in French bistro salads. Another green that withstands cold temperatures, you can find frisse in grocery stores or specialty markets; look for a sturdy white base and curly green leaves. The classic salad served in Parisian bistros is frisse, topped with a hot, poached egg, cubes of thick-sliced bacon and garlic-laced vinaigrette. When you break open the yolk of the still-warm egg and mix it with the bitter greens and smoky bacon you will understand why this is one of France’s most popular winter salads.

Of course there’s no rule that salads must contain greens. Try a roasted beet salad. Wash, and then tightly wrap whole red and yellow beets in foil, and roast for about 45 minutes to an hour, or until the beets are easily pierced with a fork. Beets become sweet and mellow when roasted, making them the ideal base for a winter salad. Thinly slice the roasted beets and top with nuts, chopped shallots, raw fennel slices, oranges or tangerines, or slices of roasted pear or apple and toss with a olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Other root vegetables that can be roasted and included in salads include leeks, carrots, onions, shallots, parsnips, and fennel: simply drizzle with olive oil and roast in a shallow pan until just tender. Serve the roasted vegetables warm with a garlicky-herb vinaigrette: add nuts, seeds, grated or shredded cheese.

One of my favorite winter salads is shredded cabbage tossed with cubes of warm bacon, crumbled blue cheese, and sweet, caramelized walnuts. The combination of crunchy cabbage and walnuts, soft, buttery cheese, and meaty bacon is so satisfying you’ll want to eat it as a main course.

Serve any of these salads with a warm loaf of crusty bread, a hearty red wine or cider: light the fire, and tell spring you’ll see her when she gets here. You’re in no hurry now.

Kathy Gunst can be reached at kgunst@aol.com.