Micro Greens, Candied Kumquats, Watermelon Radish and Chamomile Vinaigrette

Smelling Salts Social: Tea Party Salad

  • Smelling Salts Social: Tea Party Salad
  • Smelling Salts Social: Tea Party Salad
  • Smelling Salts Social: Tea Party Salad
  • Smelling Salts Social: Tea Party Salad
  • Smelling Salts Social: Tea Party Salad
  • Smelling Salts Social: Tea Party Salad
  • Smelling Salts Social: Tea Party Salad
  • Smelling Salts Social: Tea Party Salad
  • Smelling Salts Social: Tea Party Salad
  • Smelling Salts Social: Tea Party Salad

NOTES

A very pretty salad for an event, and the candied kumquats will keep in your fridge for up to a month. Use the extra syrup for cocktails.

INSTRUCTIONS

Kumquats (Recipe From NY Times Cooking section)

In a small saucepan, cover the fruit with cold water and bring to a boil. Drain. Cover the fruit with cold water and bring to a boil again. Drain and set aside. In the same saucepan, combine 1 cup water and the sugar, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Pierce each piece of fruit 2 or 3 times with a paring knife. Drop the fruit into the sugar syrup and continue to simmer for 15 minutes for kumquats or 20 minutes for lemons. Remove from heat and leave the fruit steeping in the syrup unrefrigerated for 8 hours or overnight.

Bring the syrup and fruit to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes. Cool and store in a glass jar. Fruit and syrup will keep in the refrigerator for 3 months.

Salad

Simmer 1/3 cup unseasoned rice wine vinegar in a small saucepan with 2 chamomile tea bags for 5 minutes. Allow to steep while you make the rest of the salad.

Wash and gently dry sunflower shoots and buckwheat sprouts. Using a mandoline slicer, slice radish into paper thin rounds.

Remove tea bags from vinegar and squeeze to extract all the liquid inside the bag. Whisk with mustard and oil, adding extra oil if the dressing feels too thin. Add shallots and toss gently with your sprouts. Arrange watermelon radishes on your plates and top with greens and a few kumquats for each guest. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

RECIPE

DIFFICULTY

HARD

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SERVES

6

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PREP TIME

60 MINS

Kumquats

  • 1 
    pint 
    kumquats
  • 1 
    cup 
    sugar
  • 1.5 
    cups 
    water

Dressing

  • 1/4 
    cup 
    rice wine vinegar
  • 1 
    tsp 
    dijon mustard
  • 3-4 
    tbs 
    olive oil
  • 1 
    small 
    shallot, minced

Salad

  • 2 
    cups 
    sunflower shoots
  • 2 
    cups 
    buckwheat sprouts
  • 2 
     
    watermelon radishes
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    salt and pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Kumquats (Recipe From NY Times Cooking section)

In a small saucepan, cover the fruit with cold water and bring to a boil. Drain. Cover the fruit with cold water and bring to a boil again. Drain and set aside. In the same saucepan, combine 1 cup water and the sugar, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Pierce each piece of fruit 2 or 3 times with a paring knife. Drop the fruit into the sugar syrup and continue to simmer for 15 minutes for kumquats or 20 minutes for lemons. Remove from heat and leave the fruit steeping in the syrup unrefrigerated for 8 hours or overnight.

Bring the syrup and fruit to a boil, then reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes. Cool and store in a glass jar. Fruit and syrup will keep in the refrigerator for 3 months.

Salad

Simmer 1/3 cup unseasoned rice wine vinegar in a small saucepan with 2 chamomile tea bags for 5 minutes. Allow to steep while you make the rest of the salad.

Wash and gently dry sunflower shoots and buckwheat sprouts. Using a mandoline slicer, slice radish into paper thin rounds.

Remove tea bags from vinegar and squeeze to extract all the liquid inside the bag. Whisk with mustard and oil, adding extra oil if the dressing feels too thin. Add shallots and toss gently with your sprouts. Arrange watermelon radishes on your plates and top with greens and a few kumquats for each guest. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Food writer Charlotte Druckman is a new friend, but we hold so much in common: an interest in the interstices between art and food, a love of Neko Case and Loretta Lynn, and a desire to bring together women of all ages. In a late-night marathon texting session, we hatched a plan to host a series of events that would synthesize these not-so-varied interests of ours. We call it The Smelling Salts Social.  Gathering a group of 20 women, ages 30 to 93, we call in a favor with a friend at a local museum, take a tour an exhibit and then retire to one of our homes for snacks and libations. Naturally, the first meeting took the form of a tea party; it seemed only proper.

My mother, the fabulous artist Joan Sherman, has kept a studio space on Greene Street my entire life. This loft was were I learned to paint, where my kindergarten class went on field trips, where I lived at odd times in my young adult life, and where I have thrown my fair share of parties (those parties were not so much of the tea party variety). Recently, my parents decided to renovate the studio and turn it into their live/work space and primary residence. But before the pocked industrial floors and exposed beams received their facelift, I wanted to host one last event.

Charlotte and I crafted the menu of tea sandwiches, shortbread, scones with clotted cream and a lady-like salad, and my mother and I met at the flower district at the crack of dawn in an effort to decorate the shell of a space. We lit a fire, pulled out the cut-crystal and china tea cups, and made a guest list of fabulous women: legendary cookbook author Judith Jones, artists Molly Lowe, Claudia Aronow and Ruth Sherman (my Nana), curator Lauren Hinkson, Executive editor of Bon Appétit Christine Muhlke and her friend, Editor of Wallpaper Magazine, JJ Martin, and of course our mothers, to name a few.

The ladies, most of whom had not previously met, would convene in the lobby of the New Museum, where our friend, curator Gary Carrion-Murayari would generously provide a tour of the new solo exhibition of British artist Chris Ofili, Night and Day. This was Ofili’s first solo exhibition in New York since the high profile controversy that led to his work being removed from a show at The Brooklyn Museum in 1999 (if you cannot recall why you don’t like Giuliani, this story will be a sufficient reminder). While Ofili’s works from that period are on view at the New Museum, his newest works, painted once he relocated to Trinidad, made the biggest impact on our group — a series of metallic blue and black paintings shown in a dim room, that somehow manage to prevent your eyes from focusing, but wash over you entirely at the same time. Much to discuss over tea and crumpets, indeed.