Recipe: Jicama and Apple Salad

I've never used jicama in anything before. In fact, before Saturday I don't think I've ever even held one. However, I decided to take the plunge and purchase one for $1.50 at the Phoenixville Farmer's Market. I actually didn't have any solid plan for it at that point. The woman I bought it from mentioned using it like other root vegetables in soups or roasting. She also talked about using it in a salad, which I have seen online before, so that sort of stuck with me in the back of my mind.

This didn't really come together until I went with my parents (who came up to visit!) to this market in Phoenixville that has really great prices for produce. While walking around I thought about the jicama and remembered that those salads made from it almost always had apple in them, thus I should definitely pick some up! The market had some Eastern Delicious red apples just kind of hanging out in front of the counter, so I grabbed a bag of those. Just across the way from them was a big box of mangoes, which I absolutely love, so two of these were also purchased for the salad. To round everything out, I saw that blood oranges were 4/$1. I had to get them!

When I was putting this together on Sunday, I initially was just going to use jicama, apple and mango. I was sort of following this recipe for a (soy) creamy vinaigrette I'd found after about a few seconds of googling. However, I didn't have soy milk or cream, so I sort of went off on my own direction. In the end this dressing consisted of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, dijon mustard, blood orange juice, carrot juice, salt and pepper. Ugh, it was so gross. There was too much mustard and vinegar, I think. Honestly, I'm not sure what really threw it all off, so I ended up just scrapping it. I think if I tried to make it again without the mustard and only a tiny bit of vinegar it might be good? Dunno, doubt I'll try it though.

Anyway, since the dressing idea was scratched, I started looking around the kitchen for something to spice up the salad which, at this point really only consisted of jicama, apple and mango. Laying on the table behind all my stuff for the dinner was a little knob of ginger and, right next to it, the bag of blood oranges I'd bought the day before.

Aha! This is great!

Ingredients:

• 1 jicama
• 3 small, great, red apples
• 2 mangoes
• Ginger
• 1 blood orange
  (Ignore all that crap for the dressing on the left. Also the cabbage.)
  
  

Directions:

1. Skin the jicama and then shave it using the big holes on a cheese grater into a big bowl, a.k.a. the serving bowl
2. Quarter the apples, keeping the skin on, and then slice the cores off. Dice them up however you want and add then to the bowl, mixing them in well.
3. Mango. I am not 100% sure what the best way to cut up mangoes is so either google it or figure it out. Anyway, cut the mangoes into thin strips, sort of like matchsticks but as close as you can get with mango. Add this to the bowl and mix around!
   
   
4. Grate (using your microplane if you have it!) about one thumb knuckle's worth of ginger into the bowl and mix it around as best you can.
5. Then, grate about half of one blood orange's zest into the bowl too. If you don't have a grater you can just cut it off with a knife, but be very careful. You want to avoid getting any of the pith, the white stuff under the zest, into the salad because it is bitter and doesn't taste good.
   Here's a picture of a blood orange and my microplane because I thought it would be a good one:
   
6. Mix it all up and eat it!

This came together SOOOO much better than I thought it would! I absolutely love it and plan on making it again as soon as I can. This salad does not need a dressing at all. The flavors of the ingredients, especially the subtle ones from the ginger and zest, combine together so well on their own that adding a sauce just wouldn't do it all justice.



I think if I make this again I might try adding raisins, or maybe another fruit. Don't really know, but I guess I'll figure it out next time I get some jicama!

Enjoy!