Salad for January? Groundbreaking.

Little gem salad with trout, potatoes, and mustardy olive and blood orange dressing

My heart is breaking for everyone affected by the multiple fires that have ripped across Los Angeles in the last week. I was lucky enough to call Los Angeles home for 7 years and have been shattered watching the devastation in so many beloved neighborhoods. If you’re looking for ways to make a difference, consider a donation to World Central Kitchen or directly contribute to a GoFundMe for one of the thousands of families who have lost their homes.

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Before we dive in I just wanted to thank you all for the support, comments, texts, and messages about my last two newsletters where I talked about two very different topics: grief and vulnerability and starting a pastured poultry farm with my husband. It’s simultaneously felt very safe-making and has inspired me to pull down the veil a little bit in to what it’s really like to live on a 100 acre horse and poultry farm in the Catskills. That’s not to say I’ll be writing essays every week, but I appreciate the space to be a bit more open than on Instagram.

There’s a certain predictability that comes with working in food media. The summer months are filled with no-bake and grilling recipes, November brings countless ways to put spins on Thanksgiving classics, and January kicks off with a flurry of salads, green juices, and “healthy eating” plans. I don’t believe in clean eating —or that food is inherently good or bad for you. But after a month of eating gingerbread, a lot of pasta, and hosting big dinner parties, I’ve been craving lighter and brighter flavors. And it sounds like some of you might too —I posted a photo of this salad on Instagram and was met with a flurry of messages asking for the recipe, so here we are.

Finding good fish in my area of the Catskills is a proven challenge. There’s a store in town called Good Cheap Food (spoiler: it’s not cheap, but they do have fresh fish on Fridays) and one a bit further away called Captain Cooks (local friends, not only do they have great seafood but it’s also a dive bar that has oysters and peel & eat shrimp on the weekends), and that’s about it. It means that my seafood consumption is limited and has to be planned in advance. So, you can imagine my delight when my local farmers market had a stall with folks selling gorgeous trout — filets, whole, and smoked.

Trout ending up being the star to which this salad was worked around. There’s little gems and radishes for crunch, boiled potatoes to make it a bit more filling, and the whole thing gets draped in a mustardy blood orange dressing laden with smashed green olives. Since the dressing isn’t particularly acidic (you could swap lemon juice for orange if that’s more your thing), I’ve added pickled red onions too.

Trying to get as much color on my plate because this is what it’s been looking like lately.

A few notes to consider:

• You could swap in other types of fish, like baked flaked salmon, canned tuna, or smoked fish.

• You could also add the radishes to the pickled red onions if you want more pickled flavor.

• Every component of this salad can be made in advance and stored in the refrigerator until ready to assemble.

Serves 4