Recipe: Citrus salsa with fresh orange, mandarin, kumquat and lime
Mixed chopped citrus pieces make a bright and lively salsa. Serve it at a meal with meats or Southwestern dishes, or with tortilla chips for an appetizer. Debbie Arrington
This versatile salsa is like a bite of winter sunshine. And for the backyard farmer, it makes the most of what you’ve got.
Like many gardeners with home-grown citrus, I often end up with an assortment of (precious few) fruit. Small citrus trees yield harvests that I can count on my fingers. What do you do with a handful of kumquats?
It’s the kumquats that add something extra to this juicy mix; their edible skin give the salsa some extra crunch and zest.
For this batch, I used one orange, two mandarins and three kumquats to make the 1 cup chopped citrus. Grapefruit and tangerine work, too.
Chop the ingredients smaller if you plan to serve alongside chips. Otherwise, this citrus salsa makes a flavorful accompaniment to seafood, chicken, pork, steak or Southwestern fare such as steak tacos or pork enchiladas.
Citrus salsa
Makes about 1-1/2 cups
Ingredients:
1 cup mixed chopped citrus such as orange, mandarin, kumquat, tangerine or grapefruit
Juice of 1 lime, preferably Mexican lime
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons red onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons green onion, finely chopped
1 tablespoon cilantro, finely chopped
¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/8 teaspoon white pepper
1/8 teaspoon garlic salt
Instructions:
Prepare fruit. Peel and seed most citrus before chopping. Slice kumquats very thin, without peeling; discard seeds.
In a medium bowl, mix together lime juice, olive oil, red and green onion, cilantro, red pepper flakes, white pepper and garlic salt. Add chopped citrus; toss gently.
Refrigerate for 1 hour or more to let flavors meld. It’s best served within one day.
Serve with chips, quesadillas, enchiladas, tacos, etc., or as an accompaniment to seafood, pork, chicken or steak.
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Food in My Back Yard Series
April 22: Should you stock up on fertilizer? (Yes!)
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April 8: When to plant summer vegetables
April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths
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March 4: Potatoes from the garden
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Garden Checklist for week of April 20
Before possible showers at the end of the week, take advantage of all this nice sunshine – and get to work!
* Set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.
* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, radishes and squash.
* Plant onion sets.
* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias.
* Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.
* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom.
* Plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.
* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.
* Smell orange blossoms? Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.
* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.
* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.
* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.
* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Give shrubs and trees a dose of a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.
* Start thinning fruit that's formed on apple and stone fruit trees -- you'll get larger fruit at harvest (and avoid limb breakage) if some is thinned now. The UC recommendation is to thin fruit when it is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Peaches and nectarines should be thinned to about 6 inches apart; smaller fruit such as plums and pluots can be about 4 inches apart. Apricots can be left at 3 inches apart. Apples and pears should be thinned to one fruit per cluster of flowers, 6 to 8 inches apart.
* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.
* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.
* Weed, weed, weed! Don’t let unwanted plants go to seed.
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