Fennel and orange salad
Thu, 9 October, 2014

I used to think fennel was overrated, bland and too aniseedy at the same time, quite fibrous – a bit pointless. Decorative though, with those bright green fronds and long stems. Clearly I'd been eating it prepared all wrong.
Because fennel salad is a thing of beauty.
I find that some things I’m not particularly keen on are much better raw. Carrots. Cabbage. Tuna (yes, tuna). And fennel turned out to be the classic example. I cannot recall where I first spotted the recipe or the idea – looking it up later I realised that it’s been around for donkey’s and I must have been one of the few people ignorant of that excellent salad. It's simple, even simpler if you have one of those mandolin gadgets, although I favour slicing fennel by hand with a very large, very sharp knife - more satisfying, provided your fingers remain intact. Note that it needs to be sliced very thinly, the thinner the better.
I’ve used orange here to add to the fennel but any other large citrus fruit will do nicely, the trick is to fillet it but it is certainly not as hard as it might seem. Ah well, you can even skip the citrus and just dress it with lemon juice, throw in some pomegranate seeds, chunks of nectarine, coarsely grated apple, chopped dates or raisins, almonds – the best thing about raw fennel is that it’s really a wonderful and versatile background for endless variants.
fennel and orange salad
Servings: 4Time: 20 minutes
INGREDIENTS
- 2 large fennel bulbs
- 1 large orange
- a handful of raisins
- salt and pepper
- olive oil
METHOD
1. Trim the fennel tops and keep the green fronds. Cut each bulb in half vertically, try to cut out the core at the bottom in a triangle (it’s a bit tough). Slice very thinly and toss with a little salt.
2. Cut the peel including the pith off the orange starting from top and bottom, then round the sides. Cut out segments slicing close to the membrane. Cut each segment in half if you have a large fruit and add to the fennel with the raisins.
3. Squeeze out the juice from the leftover orange membrane over it, season with black pepper and dress with olive oil. Toss well and serve with grilled fish – go together a dream – or grilled meat.
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