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Friday, January 7, 2011

Pomegranate Cream Cheese Orange Salad



The star of the party. This is the dish that got the most raving from my guests at Lyanne’s party.

Lately I've grown not to like salads with mayonnaise dressings. Either it shows that I've grown up or I'm sick of it. Whichever way, it certainly isn't all that healthy when mayo is usually made with hydrogenated oils, and these are sources of trans-fat which are artery clogging and a main source of obesity, diabetes, cancer, infertility in women and liver problems. Mayo is not made with milk, haha. I used to think mayo is a form of dairy when I was a kid. Well, I'm not saying I want to diet and slim down, no no. But why eat something so bad for you while you can have better options in life. If I feel like having mayo, I think I'll still go back to my tomato cream. Choose a good oil when you make it, then it'll be much better for you. When I made that I only have corn oil in hand, and that is hydrogenated too, but since the amount is not as much as regular mayo, just keep one eye closed. Now, I have one bottle of grapeseed oil, which is far better. It's just how you choose your food.

This is the only dish that I remembered what and how much stuff I used to prepare it. But then again, what to put and how much to put in is up to you.

But when I planned for this salad, I gave it a few thoughts

Crunchy : Lettuce and croutons
Soft: Cheese and orange
Sweet: Pomegranate
Salty: Croutons and cheese
Tangy: Orange
Creamy feel: Cheese
Colour combination : Green, Pink, Orange, Yellow and White.

It was a nice combination, and I will do this again, if I have another party to do. Probably my housewarming party, but I do hope I can get pomies at that time of the year.

Mike’s aunt asked for this recipe, so I post this up for her reference.

You can actually use the dressing as your Chinese New Year Lou Sang dressing. Slice the lettuces instead of breaking them up, use parmesan instead of cream cheese, use mandarin oranges instead of Valencia (and skip the sugar), and the croutons… hmm… up to u to innovate with it so that it’ll be suitable for tossing with chopsticks.

Pomegranate Cream Cheese Orange Salad
Recipe Source: Wendyywy

2 heads of coral lettuce (I used Genting Garden brand)
1 large head of romaine lettuce (Genting Garden brand too)
3/4 cup pomegranate seeds (I used 2 Spanish pomies, Chinese pomies are pale and seeds are bigger)
125gm cream cheese (cut them when they are cold and firm)
2 valencia oranges (flesh only)
1 cup or more croutons (Recipe here)

1. Wash and drain both lettuces. Tear into small pieces and place in salad dish
2. Cut away skin from orange, including the white parts and remove wedges of flesh from the orange. Sprinkle orange wedges over lettuce. Squeeze leftover juice from the remains for the vinaigrette.
3. Cube cream cheese and sprinkle all over the lettuces. (a wet knife helps with the cutting)
4. Sprinkle pomegranate seeds over salad. Keep chilled until time of serving
5. Prepare vinaigrette.
6. When it’s time to serve, carefully drizzle vinaigrette evenly over salad and lastly top with crispy croutons. No need to toss.

Orange Vinaigrette
Juice from 1 valencia orange, plus extra juice from the leftovers after removing the flesh from the above 2 oranges
3 Tbsp light olive oil
¾ tsp salt
2 tsp sugar
Good dash of black pepper
Mix everything together and taste. If too sour, add more sugar. The dressing should be taste nicely salted (just like soups) and the sweetness nicely balanced with the tanginess of the orange juice.

24 comments:

  1. this look refreshing i don't like cream base sauces of all kinds but maybe i will give this cream cheese a try! thanks for sharing wendy!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jess,
    There is no cream in the sauce. The cream cheese is cubed.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Very unusual but interesting combination. Thanks for sharing. It sure is a nice change from the mayo drenched salads.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Jenn@ChasingFoodDreamsJanuary 7, 2011 at 4:27 PM

    What an impressive salad! Visual is gorgeous and love the pommies in this as it brings an exotic touch to the salad.

    This is a must try recipe.. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. looks absolutely yummy... would luv to try it but...
    how much is 125m cream cheese? and how do you exactly toast the croutons?
    thanks,
    iv

    ReplyDelete
  6. This salad looks appertising. My kids are allergy to citrus fruit, do you have any recommendation to replace the orange and orange juice? Thanks.

    CL

    ReplyDelete
  7. NEL,
    Thanks



    Jess,
    LOL.



    Jenn,
    Yup, the pommies add a very lovely touch to the salad



    iv,
    Just cube your french loaf, or any other crusty bread, add some butter to your frying pan, and cook your bread cubes on low heat until it is golden and crunchy.
    Abt the cheese, sorry, it was a typo, it's 125gm, just use half a regular block and it'll be fine.



    CL,
    Vinegar? As salad dressings needs something acidic. Apple cider vinegar or whatever vinegar u prefer. But then, use less sparingly than orange juice.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Makan the pomegranate seed also? LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Pete,
    Spanish pomegranate seeds are very soft and edible. But it won't be the same with pomegranates inported from China, of which you'd need to spit out.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Very healthy and refreshing, I love the colour combination. Will try this as one of my CNY dishes, thanks for sharing ya!

    ReplyDelete
  11. wendy, i'm still picturing of all the dishes and the cakes that you prepared for lyanne's party. The birthday cake alone can almost kill me, the pizza cake is more simple and this.. though simple, it still takes up some time to get this and that, prepare the dressing and the croutons..phew!! WONDER MOM! i like the idea of adding the croutons.

    ReplyDelete
  12. We too like our salad with simple dressing. All we used are EVOO, balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper. We hardly get any dressing from the store.

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  13. Min,
    No problem,hope your family loves this.



    Lena,
    I made the croutons the day before. I knew it'll take me some time to slowly toast it over the stove. I love croutons on caesar salad, so, I always add croutons to my salads. Adds a nice fragrant salty crunchy feel to the salad. And kids super love it.
    The dressing only took me 2 minutes, not difficult la. Just squeeze juice, adjust taste only.
    The whole salad took me 15 minutes only, which included getting the seeds from the pomies and cutting orange wedges and cubing cheese. Luckily Mike's aunt helped me to wash the lettuces earlier as I left them there at her house. But I have to say, I was doing everything like a mad woman, becos I only made the salad when I arrived on the celebration site. And the guests were almost arriving. Crazy, hahaha!!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Gert,
    Oh yes, that sounds delicious too!
    Malaysians are slowly learning to savour salads without mayo. I guess we are still in our infancy with western cuisine. Haha, betul tak?

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  15. yo.. this is so healthy compared to the mayo-salad...but my ILs are so traditional chinese lah...gotta wait til they are not eating then I make this...

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  16. So interesting the way that you used cream cheese in the salad...love the idea of pomegranate as well, so pretty, creamy and tasty. Nice photos!

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  17. Very attractive salad and I like the dressing! Definitely my kind of dressing from now on! No more mayo for me!

    ReplyDelete
  18. Hi,

    Thank you so much for ur lovely recipe sharing, I made d salad yesterday, but since I din get any pomie, so I replaced it with passion fruit, it taste so good and my frens all loved it. And I also tried ur lemongrass roasted chicken, it got lots of compliments too. I must say, I'm ur big fan now :)

    PK

    ReplyDelete
  19. PK,
    Wow, passionfruit, yum!!!
    Glad you loved both recipes :)
    Thanks and hope to see you around more often

    ReplyDelete
  20. Hi,
    i jz come across this recipe,
    great for my xmas party..

    but taking out promegranate seed is such a hassle ~.~
    any hassle free method to share?

    or can i substitute the pink wif red and yellow capsicum?

    Ly

    ReplyDelete
  21. Ly,
    The pomegranate here lends a sweet and crunchy factor to the salad. Capsicum will be another sort of taste. But salads are always flexible, add anything or remove anything you want, as long as you get what you want and intend it to be.
    You can half the fruit, then with the cut side down, whack the skin with a wooden spoon. That's how Nigella and Jamie does it. I saw it from their shows.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Ly,
    The most hassle free method is to buy the seeds. Available from fruit stalls in major shopping centres, try MBG fruit stalls. I bought before.

    ReplyDelete
  23. That looks like just what I need right now.

    ReplyDelete

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