Erica De Mane

Orange and herring salad with almonds and frisée.

Recipe:

Orange and Herring Salad with Almonds and Frisée

I recently came across a reference to a recipe called “Mackerel, Almond, Orange, and Fennel.” The combination sounds great, but I can’t find an actual recipe. Do you have one?

Herbert D.

When I first read this intriguing but vague request from one of my readers, I immediately thought of a hot dish of mackerel roasted with fennel and orange zest and then garnished with toasted almonds. Delicious. But then I remembered that this flavor combo was familiar to me in another incarnation. About eight years ago, on my first trip to Sicily, I ate dinner at a place in Palermo that specialized in traditional Sicilian dishes (most places in Palermo specialize in traditional Sicilian dishes, but this one seemed to do so in an especially antiquated and formal way). I unfortunately can’t remember the name of the place, but I recall an interesting dessert, a watermelon gelatina, poured into a pastry shell and decorated with fresh jasmine blossoms. The gelatin itself was flavored with cinnamon and rosewater, and dusted with cocoa, a strange but delicious combination with obvious Arab lineage. Another dish I ate that evening was an antipasto, a salad of smoked fish, which may have been sardines, herring, or mackerel-something strong-with orange slices and toasted almonds. The taste was startling, in a not altogether good way. Something about the fish and orange mingled to produce the aroma of low tide. But I thought about that dish when I got home and somehow felt the combination had potential.

I began searching for recipes in Sicilian cookbooks and came up with a reference to something similar in Pomp and Sustenance, Mary Taylor Simeti’s excellent book on Sicilian cuisine and culture. She talks about “insalata di arance e aringhe,” a salad of acidy oranges and smoked herring, as an cold antipasto typically served in some of Palermo’s restaurants, mentioning only herring, orange, and olive oil as ingredients. Obviously I ate in one of those restaurants.

After getting this e-mail from Herbert, I decided to look into the matter afresh. A complete recipe showed up in a paperback cookbook I had bought in Palermo on a later visit. “Nsalata d’aranci e arenga ovata” contained oranges, thin-sliced onion, herring, green olives, and wild fennel. Unfortunately it was in one of those pamphlet-type book I always buy when I’m traveling that usually have great recipes but not much background information.

I made the dish as directed, substituting bulb fennel for the unavailable wild stuff, and the results were interesting, good even. On my next attempt I added whole toasted almonds, a scattering of basil, and a handful of frisée to lighten it up, creating more of a proper salad, and the whole thing came together in a beautifully balanced, sweet, smoky, salty, excellent-tasting dish.

For my first go at this I used herring; good but strong. But then I made it again using a smoked chub (a baby whitefish), and its more mild flavor was very appealing. It would seem to me any good quality smoked fish would work. If you like a stronger flavor, go for herring or mackerel, or bluefish; smoked trout is a tamer option. Whatever fish you use, the flavors of Sicily will be there in all the island’s glorious Arab, Spanish, French, Greek confusion.

Orange and Herring Salad with Almonds and Frisée

(Serves 4 as a first course)

1 medium head frisée salad, torn into pieces
About 1 cup smoked herring (or another smoked fish such as trout, mackerel, or whitefish), torn into small pieces
3 oranges, peeled and thinly sliced
1 small fennel bulb, very thinly sliced
A palmful of whole, blanched, lightly toasted almonds
A palmful of whole green olives
A few very thin slices of red onion
2 1/2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
Salt
Black pepper
A dozen basil leaves, cut into thin strips

Place the frisée, herring, orange, fennel, almonds, green olives, and red onion in a salad bowl. Drizzle with the olive oil and the lemon juice, season with salt and black pepper, and scatter on the basil. Toss gently and serve right away.