Onions and Oranges

I know I know - last thing you expected was for this to turn into a recipe blog right? Oh well. Here's a really inexpensive beautiful summer one. Deal with it!

This got some eyebrows raised when I first put it up on the old blog and so here's the recipe. There's tons of different takes on this but I'm going to give you the one I served tapas style. This is another recipe that's so simple and easy it should be outlawed.

Where mine differs from others is that I just have three ingredients and I use navel oranges rather than ones with seeds. They're easier to work with and... um... they don't have seeds.

The whole key here is to get the oranges the day you're going to make the salad because you want it to be ridiculously juicy and fresh, and the longer the fruit sits in your house the worse off it's going to get.

In estimating services I'd say for large oranges use one orange per person and multiply the amounts accordingly. I don't think this tastes very good the next day. So don't make more than you'll need. Leave them asking for more anyhow. This is a surprising taste the first time you try it. You'll get hooked.

Stuff:
2 navel oranges
1/2 small red onion, sliced and separated into strips
1 tablespoon raspberry vinegar
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and fresh ground pepper
2 tablespoons golden raisins
Mint sprigs

1. Heat a small pot of water till just before it boils. Turn flame off, dump the raisins in the water. Let them sit for about 15-20 minutes.
2. Cut the oranges open and continue to divide the wedges until they are relatively bite-sized.
3. With a sharp knife trim the skin and pith off of the underside of the orange slices, keeping the shape of the slice. Plate.
4. Cut the red onion into "slivers" and separate them across the top of the orange wedges.
5. Put raspberry vinegar, olive oil and ground pepper in a bowl & whisk them together. (this is just the dressing. if you have a raspberry vinegrette in the fridge you could use that, I suppose, but this dressing doesn't taste as tangy unless you mix it yourself, and the dressing should have that vinegar pucker hint).
6. Sparingly spoon the dressing over the oranges & onions (don't toss!).
7. Sprinkle the raisins over that.
8. If garnishing - use fresh mint.

I've seen it with unsalted sunflowers and some kind of greens and even olives and all of those would be authentic Spanish (where the dish comes from) but this right here is perfect for a hot and humid summer day.