Za’atar roasted sweet potato with radicchio, orange & falafel, just a simple ‘throw-it-together’ affair of seasonal ingredients! 

Za'atar Sweet Potato Radicchio | Natural Kitchen Adventures

My toes often make it into the background of my quickly snapped instagram photos, and having spent most of the winter an outrageous shade of coral, I recently declared that I would rather like to repaint them the colour of radicchio to match.  Maybe Chanel (other brands are available) are listening and would like to mix up a new shade just for me?

I had actually just intended to take a quick snap of this dish I threw together and use the photos to flourish out my instagram account with some brightly coloured content. After taking a tonne of photos I decided that it wouldn’t harm to share the recipe in its full glory here on the blog also. It was rather good.

Today’s recipe isn’t really a recipe as such, more of a collection of meant to go together seasonal ingredients, cooked simply and then assembled purposefully on a plate. Some days I just have all the right things at home that I can throw together for a simple meal like this (having a weekly veg bags helps). You might also like to know that some days I’m eating peanut butter on defrosted toast.

Za'atar Sweet Potato Radicchio | Natural Kitchen Adventures

Sweet potato joins seasonal favourites radicchio and oranges (choose bloods if you can), offering sustenance, comforting carbs, and sweeter notes to balance out that bitter radicchio. You don’t have to roast it in za’atar (a shop bought pre-mix I confess), but it tastes really good so comes recommended.

I’ve used pre-made falafel (disclosure: a previous sponsored post, but now a freezer staple) in this recipe, because whilst I would always make them from scratch for a catering job – indeed they are a favourite on a retreat, my home life doesn’t always allow me such time in the kitchen. I think shredded chicken, some beautiful poached trout or salmon would be equally at home with all of these flavours.

The first outing for this radicchio and orange combo this year, was for one of the course for an an event I catered back in January for Yoga Brunch Club. Then, they featured alongside creamy complementary ricotta and with a slightly different dressing using pomegranate molasses as a side dish to a celeriac frittata. The event was held on a beautifully sunny Sunday morning in London, and it was good to be reminded that winter isn’t all about darkness. On the plate, or otherwise. You can see some photos from the event here.

Enjoy all of these beautiful colours and flavours while you still can.  Blood oranges may only be around until next month. How would you put them all together? Perhaps like I did last year using the radicchio leaves as cups instead of being torn?

Za’atar Roasted Sweet Potato with Radicchio, Orange & Falafel

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Zahtar Roasted Sweet Potato with Radicchio, Orange and Falafel
 
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Za'atar roasted sweet potato with radicchio, orange & falafel, just a simple 'throw-it-together' affair of seasonal ingredients!
Author:
Recipe type: Salad
Serves: 2
Ingredients
  • 2 medium sized sweet potatoes, skin on and scrubbed clean, sliced lengthways into thick wedges
  • 1 tablespoon za'atar
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 oranges, supremed (segmented)
  • Large handful of radicchio leaves, torn into bitesized pieces
  • 6 cooked and ready to eat warm falafel
  • handful of walnuts
  • Sea salt and black pepper
Dressing
  • 2 tablespoons walnut oil
  • 1 tablespoon orange juice (caught from segmenting)
  • 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
Instructions
  1. Pre-heat oven to 200ºC (fan)
  2. Toss the sliced sweet potato in olive oil and the za'atar and make sure they are well covered. Lay on a lined baking sheet, and roast in the oven for 25 mins until crispy on the outside with tender flesh.
  3. Meanwhile, make up your salad dressing, by combining the oil with the juice and vinegar and seasoning with salt and pepper. Dip in a bit of radicchio to check flavour, you want the sweet dressing to balance the bitter leaves. Place half of the dressing in a large bowl and toss in your leaves and make sure they are all well coated in the dressing.
  4. Toast your walnuts by warming them through in a frying pan with a drizzle of olive oil for a few minutes until lightly charred on all sides. Set aside.
  5. When the potatoes are ready (and you've got your falafel ready too), lay the dressed radicchio leaves on a plate and scatter over your potato, orange segments, falafel and walnuts. Add a final drizzle of the dressing, and some black pepper too.
  6. I added a few extra seasonal green leaves for a colour pop but this isn't necessary!

If you need a quick reminder on how to supreme, check out my instagram video below.

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How to suprême citrus fruit. ⁣ ⁣ Suprême is a French term, and is pronounced sue-prem (not sue-preem as in ???? “Baby Love”, “You can’t hurry love” and “Stop in the Name of Love”)⁣ ⁣ You’re going to find this useful for cutting out those segments to add to any of your dishes. This technique works with grapefruit or any orange. Although you may find some types of blood orange are trickier than others to cut (as I was reminded prepping brunch for 30 last Saturday) and might prefer to be cut in rounds like in my how to prep a blood orange video. In general the sweeter Tarocco variety have no pips so are easier to segment than Moro (but these have are a deeper red). Next time you buy some see if you notice which variety they are.⁣ ⁣ 1️⃣ First you want to remove the peel. Slice off the top and bottom and glide your knife round the sides. I couldn’t fit this into a 1 minute video, but I showed you how to do this in my previous blood orange video.⁣ 2️⃣ Grab a bowl to collect the drips of juice, if right handed get the fruit in your left and a sharp knife in your right (or if easier place the fruit on the board, rather than in your hand). 3️⃣ Slice the knife right along the side of one of the membranes, then slice again the other side of one and your segment should pop out. Flip over the loose membrane like a page in a book then move along to the next segment. Keep going till all segments are removed. The final piece might be a bit tricky.⁣ 4️⃣ Once you’re left with the membrane skeleton, you can give it a good squeeze and use up the juice for a dressing, to flavour your water or add to a G&T.⁣ ⁣ Check out the other videos in my series #howtowithcerijoneschef coming up next…. Mango!⁣ ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ #naturalchef #naturalkitchenadventures #citrusseason #bloodorange #orange #grapefruit #howto #chef #knifeskills #fbc19uk⁣

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za'atar roasted sweet potato with radicchio, blood orange and falafel | Natural Kitchen Adventures