Recipe: Salad Panama

Recipe

Salad Panama

2 large Oranges, Navel—Sectioned
1 each Grapefruit, Pink—Sectioned
1 each Grapefruit, White—Sectioned
dash of honey
8 each strawberries—sliced
1 heart Lettuce, Romaine—Shredded
4 each Pineapple Rings in juice

Dressing

1/2 cup sour cream, heavy
2 tbs Dark Rum, Haitian Rhum Babbancourt—or Meyers Rum
2 tbs fruit juice (reserved)

Preparation

Section the oranges and grapefruits.
a. Using a sharp Stainless Steel knife cut off the tops and bottoms of the fruit, exposing the flesh, and presenting a flat surface.

b. with a back and forth sawing motion, going from top to bottom and following the contours of the fruit, remove the rind and the pith, leaving the bare flesh of the fruit. This will take several cuts, and you will need to go back and remove bits of the white pith that inevitably remain.

c. Hold the fruit over a bowl, and with a sharp stainless steel knife, make a V cut along the line of tissue holding the segment.

Make a second V cut on the other side of the segment releasing the section. Repeat this until all sections are removed. Squeeze the core to capture the juice. This method is called cold pack sectioning. Any left over sections and juice will be welcome at the breakfast table, perhaps joined by a dash of honey and some sliced strawberries.
Shred the romaine, and lay it on plates.
Place a pineapple ring in the center of the romaine.
Select only perfect segments, and alternate colors, orange, white and pink. Set one segment on the pineapple ring, and then the next, reconstructing the fruit into a hemisphere, or half ball. It will do this quite naturally, due to its shape.
Combine the sour cream, rum and fruit juice to taste. You can color it with some strawberry juice if you like, by pressing any bruised berries through a strainer. Add the sliced berries to the sauce, and serve in a sauce boat to be ladled over at service.

Important Note: a rich ruby port also goes well with the strawberries over the fruit, but the Haitian Dark Rum tastes like candy!.

Notes: This refreshing salad, served at the end of a meal makes any dessert superfluous. It is based on an original salad from the Edgewater Beach Hotel Salad Book, by Arnold Schircliffe, 1926