Recipe: Cubanaise Salad

Cubanaise Salad

Three 1/4 cups Vinaigrette Dressing
1/2 each red onion—sliced very thin
1/2 each sweet Vidalia onion—sliced very thin
1 each mango—peeled and cubed
1 each avocado—peeled and cubed
1 each grapefruit, pink—peeled and cubed
1/4 each Peppers, sweet, green, red, yellow, orange—diced
2 each tomatoes, plum—diced
1/2 head lettuce leaves Curly Green or Red—washed and dried
1 tbl chives—cut small

Preparation

Prepare three bowls, each containing about 1/4 cup of Vinaigrette dressing. (Recipe repeated for your convenience.)

In the first, marinate the onion slices, taking care to keep them intact.

In the second, peel and dice the fruits and marinate them.

In the third, marinate the diced peppers and tomatoes. You could add a little diced onion too. Hold the chives as a top dressing.

Prepare a bed of lettuce, and shingle three slices, alternating the colors, or arrange them in a three ring sign (Like Budweiser).

Place 1/4 of the marinated mango, avocado, and grapefruit on the onion rings, but don't cover them completely.

Drain the diced peppers and tomatoes, and sprinkle them all over the salad.

Top dress the salad with chives.

Important Note: As I write this, I think I'd like some crab meat or diced chicken added to the fruit. What do you think? This would change it from a salad to a main dish salad, yet another category.

Notes: This salad combines two of the original Cubanaise Salads by Arnold Schircliffe, in the Edgewater Beach Hotel Salad Book. Is a fruit salad or a vegetable salad? It's both!

Steve's #19 Recipes:

Tossed Salads

Vegetable Salad

Fruit Salads

Cubanaise: Slices of Avocado, Mango, Grapefruit, Vinaigrette* with Tricolor Confetti of Peppers
Panama Salad: A Hemisphere of Orange and Grapefruit on a Slice of Pineapple. Citrus Rum Dressing with Berries.

Protein Salads

Salad Doctor
Gulfport Salad: Fantail Shrimp and Scallops, Crab Meat, Hard Cooked Eggs, Curried Mayonnaise*

Starchy Salads

* repeated from previous columns

Note: Another salad with a hot dressing was in the July 1996 eGG. It has a Brie dressing, and uses only the center. Ha! Great idea, then I can eat all the rind. Check this out, I love it, as hot dressings for salads are fairly rare. Do you have any? Care to share? (Charlemagne Salad with Hot Brie Dressing)

This page originally published as part of the electronic Gourmet Guide between 1994 and 1998.