Fennel Bender

You could be forgiven, dear reader, for taking me to be a secret agent from the National Fennel Grower's Association (there must be such an association, right?) For, in this blog's short life, I have already featured two (make it three) salads featuring fennel as a key ingredient. But I can't help myself, so dearly do I love fennel. It's such an elegant and surprising vegetable, with a taste somewhere between celery and licorice. It's a delicious oddity. Do try it, if you haven't already.

This salad is more than just a vehicle for fennel, however; it is also a lovely way to use up Smitten Kitchen's divine slow roasted tomatoes, which I plan to make all winter long (they're toothsome even when the tomatoes you start from aren't anything to write home about). The resulting marriage of textures is a thing to behold - chewy oven-dried cherry tomatoes, crisp fennel, slippery edamame, and yielding mozzarella. The basil and lemon zest (in the dressing) render the whole affair superbly fragrant to boot. It occurs to me that this is a fantastic recipe for those of us missing summer (or at least summer cuisine), since it conjures up the taste of the season without relying too heavily upon its now dwindling produce.

Edamame, Slow-roasted Tomatoes, Mozzarella, and Fennel Salad

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups edamame, cooked and cooled (other beans would also work well here, I suspect)

½ cup slow roasted cherry tomatoes (I roasted each punnet of cherry tomatoes with 1 tbsp olive oil and ½ tbsp kosher salt for 3 hours at 225˚F)

1 blob of fresh mozzarella (about 4oz), torn

½ cup fennel, finely chopped

A handful of small basil leaves

 

For the dressing:

1 tsp good extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

Zest and juice of 1 lemon

A small pinch of good salt

A large pinch of red pepper flakes

 

Method:

Combine the salad ingredients, whisk the dressing ingredients, and toss together.

Serves 2 as a light lunch.

P.S. I know I'm onto a good thing when Amelia and Freddy take it in turns to sniff it out.

Amelia avec salad.

Freddy avec salad.

Comments

[Jesse]

awww - I love that the kitties love the salad too! That looks delicious. I can understand the fennel bender. I decided to plant fennel this year and it seems like every weekend I toss a few more seeds into the garden. They can't grow fast enough for me!

[Kate]

Thanks, Jesse! I must say I'm green with envy that you have a garden to grow fennel in! (We are garden-deprived). I hope it thrives. I checked out your lovely blog, and have added it to my google reader. I'll be watching your fennel experiments with great anticipation!