Spicy Fig and Artichoke Salad
- Ready In:
- 30mins
- Ingredients:
- 20
- Serves:
-
6
ingredients
- 1 1⁄2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 1 cup thinly sliced red onion (about 1 small onion)
- 3 plain garlic cloves or 3 roasted garlic cloves, minced
- 1 (6 1/2 ounce) jar marinated artichoke hearts, marinade reserved
- 1 roasted red pepper (from the jar is fine, and using 2 peppers is tasty, too)
- 1⁄4 teaspoon chili powder
- 2 pinches dried ancho chile powder
- 10 fresh figs, halved
- 4 cups packed Baby Spinach (can use 2 bunches trimmed watercress)
- salt
- fresh ground black pepper (I prefer the tricolor) or tricolor pepper (I prefer the tricolor)
-
Dressing
- 1⁄3 cup olive oil (1/3 cup reserved marinade from artichoke hearts)
- 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice, to taste (from the bottle is okay, but fresh is better!)
- 2 1⁄2 teaspoons red wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon honey or 1 teaspoon brown rice syrup
- 1 teaspoon pomegranate syrup (aka pomegranate molasses)
- salt & freshly ground black pepper or tricolor pepper, to taste
-
Garnish
- 1⁄2 cup chopped pecans
- 2 green onions, thinly sliced (about 1/4 cup, aka scallions)
- 1⁄3 cup crumbled feta cheese
directions
- Prepare the ingredients: 1) thinly slice the red onion, 2) remove artichokes from jar, reserving the marinade if desired for dressing, and rinse, drain, and halve them, 3) slice the roasted pepper to about 1/8-1/4 inch slices, 4) halve the figs, 5) squeeze a ripe lime for the juice, and 6) slice the green onions. Now you’re ready to put together the salad!
- In a skillet over medium temperature, heat 1 teaspoon of olive oil (from the 1 1/2 Tbsp, divided) and add the red onion and garlic. Sauté for 2 minutes. Add a pinch of salt and a turn of your pepper mill and sauté for another minute.
- Add the prepared artichoke hearts and roasted red pepper and sauté until heated through, about 2 minutes, then transfer to a bowl and set aside. Do not wipe out the skillet you used.
- Add the remaining olive oil (from the 1 1/2 Tbsp, divided), chili powder, and pinches ancho powder to the same skillet and heat over medium temperature. Stir to combine the oil and powders, distributing the mixture evenly in the bottom of the pan. Lay the halved figs cut-side-down on the mixture and let cook for 2 minutes. Remove from pan and set aside.
- Make the salad dressing in a bowl by whisking together either 1/3 cup olive oil or 1/3 cup of reserved marinade and the lime juice, vinegar, honey, pomegranate syrup, and salt and pepper to taste.
- Get out a serving platter and place the baby spinach on it, then top artfully with the artichoke mixture and drizzle with 3-4 tablespoons of the dressing. Top with the seasoned fig halves and garnish with pecans, green onions, and crumbled feta. Place remaining dressing in a serving bowl with spoon, serve salad, and enjoy!
- Note: I'm thinking that the dressing with a revision using yogurt and much less oil would also be very nice for this salad!
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RECIPE SUBMITTED BY
Julesong
Tukwila, 87
<p>It's simply this: I love to cook! :) <br /><br />I've been hanging out on the internet since the early days and have collected loads of recipes. I've tried to keep the best of them (and often the more unusual) and look forward to sharing them with you, here. <br /><br />I am proud to say that I have several family members who are also on RecipeZaar! <br /><br />My husband, here as <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/39857>Steingrim</a>, is an excellent cook. He rarely uses recipes, though, so often after he's made dinner I sit down at the computer and talk him through how he made the dishes so that I can get it down on paper. Some of these recipes are in his account, some of them in mine - he rarely uses his account, though, so we'll probably usually post them to mine in the future. <br /><br />My sister <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/65957>Cathy is here as cxstitcher</a> and <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/62727>my mom is Juliesmom</a> - say hi to them, eh? <br /><br />Our <a href=http://www.recipezaar.com/member/379862>friend Darrell is here as Uncle Dobo</a>, too! I've been typing in his recipes for him and entering them on R'Zaar. We're hoping that his sisters will soon show up with their own accounts, as well. :) <br /><br />I collect cookbooks (to slow myself down I've limited myself to purchasing them at thrift stores, although I occasionally buy an especially good one at full price), and - yes, I admit it - I love FoodTV. My favorite chefs on the Food Network are Alton Brown, Rachel Ray, Mario Batali, and Giada De Laurentiis. I'm not fond over fakey, over-enthusiastic performance chefs... Emeril drives me up the wall. I appreciate honesty. Of non-celebrity chefs, I've gotta say that that the greatest influences on my cooking have been my mother, Julia Child, and my cooking instructor Chef Gabriel Claycamp at Seattle's Culinary Communion. <br /><br />In the last couple of years I've been typing up all the recipes my grandparents and my mother collected over the years, and am posting them here. Some of them are quite nostalgic and are higher in fat and processed ingredients than recipes I normally collect, but it's really neat to see the different kinds of foods they were interested in... to see them either typewritten oh-so-carefully by my grandfather, in my grandmother's spidery handwriting, or - in some cases - written by my mother years ago in fountain pen ink. It's like time travel. <br /><br />Cooking peeve: food/cooking snobbery. <br /><br />Regarding my black and white icon (which may or may not be the one I'm currently using): it the sea-dragon tattoo that is on the inside of my right ankle. It's also my personal logo.</p>