Wednesday, December 03, 2008

An orange and fennel salad recipe



Looking for a light, quick and festive starter? Well, try this one :) It's a lovely Italian winter salad (Sicilian in origin, apparently), where fennel provides a lovely and slightly aniseedy crunch, orange provides the necessary sweet note, onion the sharpness and toasted walnuts add textural interest.

Orange and fennel salad
(Apelsini ja apteegitilli salat)
Serves 4

large handful or two of salad leaves (f.ex. lamb's lettuce)
1-2 fennel bulbs, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 red onion, peeled and thinly sliced
6 medium-sized (red blood) oranges, peeled and thinly sliced
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
extra virgin olive oil
walnut halves, toasted

Peel the oranges (remove as much of the white pith as possible) and cut crosswise into thin slices.
Remove the hard bottom part of the fennel bulbs and discard, cut the fennel into thin slices.
Peel the red onion, cut into thin slices.
Place orange, fennel and onion slices into a large bowl, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil. Leave to stand for at least 30 minutes or up to a few hours at room temperature, mixing couple of times.
To serve, place some salad leaves (cos or lamb's lettuce) onto a serving plate, top with salad, including any juices.
Garnish with toasted chopped walnuts.

8 comments:

Kalyn Denny said...

Gorgeous. I wish I had this to eat for dinner right now!

lobstersquad said...

that´s a very Spanish combo, except instead of the fennel we use salted dried cod (resoaked). How would it work with some Baltic herring?

Anonymous said...

Hei,
olen ka juba pikkemat aega sama salati fänn olnud. Pakkunud nii iseseisva eelroana kui ka lisandina salati näol toidulauas. Proovi teinekord ka rosinaid panna. Annab huvitava nüansi...

Anonymous said...

Beautiful photography. I have not done much with fennel but am goung to try this for sure!

Mary Bergfeld said...

This is a lovely salad. You have a beautiful site.

Tiina said...

What a lovely recipe! It includes several of my favorite ingredients. And I must add that I love the estonian word for fennel!

Greetings,
Tiina

Jeanne said...

What a wonderful conbination of flavours - thanks for sharing this one Pille :)

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This are the kind of recipes that I would like to taste. It's simple, but nutritive and innovative at the same time. I'm gonna try to prepare it, and then I'll tell how it resulted.