Fennel, orange and grapefruit salad with mint
Posted: May 18, 2015 Filed under: Fruit, Salad, Vegetarian | Tags: Fennel, Fruit, Grapefruit, Matthew Accarrino, Oranges, Salad, Vegetarian 1 Comment
The year was 2013 when I posted a dish by the Hairy Dieters to illustrate on strange food habits. Like, for example, eating over and over again the same dish or ingredient for a whole season. Over and over again… The dish in question was orange and fennel salad with harissa dressing (here). Almost 2 years after, another fennel and citrus salad shows up, this time to explain that grapefruit (and avocado) are my food crazes of 2015. Well, citrus were exceptionally good this year and any excuse was good to have them. Not trying to convert this in a head to head citrus salad competition…. this one is a more sophisticated and chefy, ideal to impress dinner parties mobile calorie intake units guests. Also, it calls for the best ingredients you can find. There is no harissa to hide in this one. In any case, totally worth the effort.
Fennel, orange and grapefruit salad with mint (adapted from a Matthew Accarrino’s recipe found in Food & Wine Magazine)
Ingredients
- 2 red grapefruits
- 2 navel oranges
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- Salt to taste
- 2 fennel bulbs—halved, cored and thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons small mint leaves
- 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
Method
Using a sharp knife, cut the skin and white pith from the grapefruits and oranges. Working over bowl, cut between the membranes to release the sections into the bowl. Squeeze the membranes to extract the juice. In a small bowl, stir the olive oil with the honey and lemon juice. Add 3 tablespoons of the citrus juice and season with salt. [You most likely won’t need all the juice] In a shallow serving bowl, toss the fennel and citrus sections with the dressing. Garnish with the mint leaves and ground coriander and serve right away.
Pearl barley tabouleh with marinated feta
Posted: September 24, 2014 Filed under: Grains, Pulses and lentils, Salad, Vegetarian | Tags: barley, Feta cheese, Herbs, Lunch box, Salad, Spices, Spring onions, Yotam Ottolenghi Leave a comment
A bit more nutritious and wholesome than regular tabouleh, but a very interesting spin on this dish. The kind of stuff that makes you look forward for your lunch box…
Pearl barley tabouleh with marinated feta (adapted from Yotam Ottolengi’s column in The Guardian)
Ingredients
- 40g pearl barley
- 100g feta cheese
- 1½ tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp za’atar
- ½ tsp coriander seeds, lightly toasted and crushed
- ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
- 80g parsley, leaves and stems
- 4 spring onions (about 40g in total), finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 40g cashew nuts, lightly toasted and crushed roughly
- 1 green pepper, deseeded and cut into 1cm dice
- ½ teasponn ground allspice
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 60ml olive oil
- Salt and black pepper
Method
Put the pearl barley in a small saucepan, cover with water and boil for 30-35 minutes, until tender but still with a bite. Drain into a fine sieve, shake to remove all the water and transfer to a large bowl.
Break the feta into rough pieces about 2cm in size, and mix in a small bowl with the olive oil, za’atar, coriander seeds and cumin. Gently mix together and leave to marinate while you prepare the rest of the salad.
Chop the parsley finely and place in a bowl with the spring onion, garlic, cashew nuts, green pepper, allspice, lemon juice, olive oil and cooked pearl barley. Mix well together and season to taste.
Fennel with radishes and sumac
Posted: August 29, 2014 Filed under: Fruit, Salad, Vegetarian | Tags: middle eastern flavours, pomegranate, radish, Salad, Spices, Vegetarian Leave a comment
A memory of the Summer that has never been… Very easy to do, bold flavours and can be prepared in advance. What’s not to like..?
Fennel with radishes and sumac (Adapted from The Guardian’s The 10 best salad drawer recipes)
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoon of lemon juice
- 1 small fennel bulb, about 200g
- 200g radishes
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- Seeds of ¼ pomegranate (optional)
- 1 teaspoon of sumac
- Salt
Method
1 Have ready a bowl of water with 1 tbsp of lemon juice in it. Finely slice the fennel using a mandoline and place in the acidulated water until just ready to serve, to prevent it discolouring.
2 Finely slice the radishes and place in a bowl. Whisk the oil and remaining lemon juice together. Drain the fennel and mix with the radishes. Drizzle over the dressing and toss gently. Strew the salad over a large serving platter and scatter with the pomegranate seeds, if using. Finish with a dusting of sumac and a little salt then serve straight away.
Barley, beetroot and feta salad
Posted: July 21, 2014 Filed under: Pulses and lentils, Vegetables, Vegetarian | Tags: Beetroot, feta, Mafalda Pinto Leite, Salad, Summer, Vegetarian Leave a comment
It is the return of #beetrootgate…. It has been a while – maybe a bit too much. The recipe is from Mafalda Pinto Leite, who as of late has been working on a healthy recipes withe healthy ingredients and healthy cooking methods. Sometimes, like this barley salad, with delicious results. A very good salad for the Summer, refreshing and comforting at the same time.
Barley, beetroot and feta salad (adapted from Mafalda Pinto Leite’s blog Dias com Mafalda)
Ingredients
1 cup of barley
1/3 cups of toasted sun flower seeds
1 small beetroot
1 grated carrot
50g of grated feta cheese
Dressing
1 crushed garlic clove
2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons of lemon
1/3 cup of lemon
¼ cup of torn basil leaves
Method
Cook the barley according to the instructions on the packet, until it is tender. Cool down with cold water and drain. Reserve.
For the dressing, put all the ingredients in a small bowl and whisk. Alternatively, just put them all in closed bottle and shake.
To serve, put the barley in a salad bowl and mix with all the vegetables and cheese. Add the dressing, salt and pepper to taste and mix well.
Broccoli slaw
Posted: December 10, 2013 Filed under: Salad, Vegetarian | Tags: Broccoli, Gordon Ramsay, Salad, slaw, Vegetables, Vegetarian Leave a comment
I would have never thought raw broccoli could taste this good… Please don’t even mention it is often considered a super-food (whatever that means), that raw broccoli has more anti-oxidants than cooked one and how much finer it has. It supposed to be a side dish for a dinner party, not a statement piece or declaration of intentions, OK?
Broccoli slaw (adapted from MailOnline’s Food special part one: Gordon Ramsay’s ultimate home cooking)
Ingredients
- 1 head of broccoli
- 100g raisins
- 100g whole blanched almonds, toasted and roughly chopped
For the dressing
- 200ml natural yoghurt
- 1–11⁄2 tablespoons cider vinegar
- pinch of sugar
- sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Method
Cut off and discard the broccoli stalks. Chop the head into small pieces. Place in a salad bowl and add the almonds and currants. Set aside.
Put the yoghurt for the dressing into a bowl and stir in the vinegar, starting with 1 tablespoon, and adding more later if needed. Add the sugar, mix well and season. Taste and add the remaining vinegar or a little extra sugar if necessary.
Pour the dressing over the broccoli, toss well and serve. In case you want to prepare it advance, you can kept in the fridge overnight.
Beetroot, apple and walnuts salad with yoghurt and cumin seeds dressing
Posted: October 21, 2013 Filed under: Salad, Vegetarian | Tags: Beetroot, chicory, Nuts, Salad, The Hairy Dieters, Vegetarian, Yoghurt Leave a comment
Beetroots again! It has been while – but here they are again… #Beetrootgate proceeds with a lovely salad of contrasting flavours and different textures. Add a bit of feta cheese for a full meal, perfect for a lunch box.
Beetroot, apple and walnuts salad with yoghurt and cumin seeds dressing (adapted from Dave Myers and Si King’s The Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight)
Ingredients
- 2 medium cooked beetroots (not pickled), cut into small cubes
- 20g blanched hazelnuts
- 1/2 teaspoon of cumin seeds
- 2 chicory heads, trimmed.
- 2 red apples, like gala
- 1/2 small red onion
- small handful of fresh mint leaves
- small handful of fresh flat leaf parsley
Dressing
- 150g of low fat yoghurt
- the juice and the zest of 1/2 lemon
- 2 teaspoon of runny honey
Method
Slip the beetroots out of their skins. Cut them into wedges and then into cubes
Roughly chop the hazelnuts on a board. Tip them into a colander and give it a good shake until get rid of all the small powdery bits. Reserve the big chunky ones.
Scatter the nuts into a non-stick frying pan and toast over a medium-high heat for about 5min or until lightly browned, turning them as they cook. Add the cumin seeds and toast together for about 1-2min. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
Mix the ingredients for the dressing in a bowl.
Cut each head of chicory lengthways into 6 thin wedges and put them in a salad bowl; alternatively you can separate the some leaves. Cut the apple into quarters, remove the core and the slice the apple quarters fairly thinly. Peel and finely slice the onion. Roughly chop the mint and parsley leaves.
Lightly toss the chicory, apple, onion, hazelnuts, cumin seeds and herbs together. Scatter the beetroot on top of the salad and mix gently. Scatter around the dressing to taste
Roasted sweet potatoes and fresh figs in a reduction of balsamic
Posted: October 11, 2013 Filed under: Fruit, Salad, Uncategorized, Vegetarian | Tags: Fruit, Middle East, Salad, Sweet potatoes, Yotam Ottolenghi Leave a comment
Apparently, it is one of the most popular Yotam Ottolenghi’s recipes – and rightly so…. A few tweaks to the recipe, though. Onions were replaced by leeks as one of the mobile calorie intake units guests is allergic to it. Fresh figs were replaced my dried ones, due to sourcing and budgetary constraints. Probably not the dish Yotam envisioned, but still… it is a pretty good way to start your Autumn.
Roasted sweet potatoes and fresh figs in a reduction of balsamic (adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi‘s Jerusalem)
Ingredients
- 4 small sweet potatoes (1 kg in total)
- 5 tbsp olive oil
- 40ml balsamic vinegar (you can use a commercial rather than a premium aged grade)
- 20g caster sugar
- 3 leeks halved lengthways and cut into thin slices
- 1 red chilli, thinly sliced
- 250g of dried figs, sliced
- Maldon sea salt and black pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 240oC/220oC Fan/Gas Mark 9.
Wash the sweet potatoes, halve them lengthways and then cut each again similarly into three long wedges. Mix with three tablespoons of the olive oil, two teaspoons of salt and some black pepper. Spread the wedges out on a baking sheet, skin-side down, and cook for about 25 minutes until soft but not mushy. Remove from the oven and leave to cool down.
To make a balsamic reduction, place the balsamic vinegar and sugar in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 2–4 minutes, or until it thickens. Be sure to remove the pan from the heat when the vinegar is still runnier than honey; it will continue to thicken as it cools.
Stir in a drop of water before serving if it does become too thick to drizzle. Arrange the sweet potatoes on a serving platter.
Heat the remaining oil in a medium saucepan and add the spring onions and chilli. Fry on a medium heat for 4–5 minutes, stirring often, making sure not to burn the chilli, and then spoon the oil, onions and chilli over the sweet potatoes.
Dot the figs among the wedges and then drizzle over the balsamic reduction. Serve at room temperature.
Pear and fennel salad with caraway and pecorino cheese
Posted: September 26, 2013 Filed under: Salad, Vegetarian | Tags: Cheese, Pear, Salad, Vegetarian, Yotam Ottolenghi Leave a comment
From an off-season salad to a totally in season one, courtesy of Yotam Ottolenghi. It seems an odd combination of flavours, but they really go well together: the anise flavor of the fennel, sweetness of the pears, the saltiness of the cheese, the freshness of the lemon, the bitterness of the rucola…. It could well be one of the dishes of this Autumn (minus pecorino cheese, for a sensible calorie count).
Pear and fennel salad with caraway and pecorino (adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s column in The Guardian)
Ingredients
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp sherry vinegar
- 1 large fennel bulb, cut in half lengthways, then each half cut sideways into 2mm slices
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1½ tsp caraway seeds, toasted and lightly crushed
- 1 tsp maple syrup
- Salt and black pepper
- 10g picked dill
- 75g rocket
- 3 medium ripe conference pears, peeled, quartered lengthways, cored and cut into 0.5cm wedges
- 60g pecorino, thinly shaved
Method
Mix the lemon juice and vinegar in a large bowl. Add the fennel and leave to soften for about 45 minutes, stirring from time to time.
Put the oil, caraway, maple syrup, a quarter-teaspoon of salt and some black pepper into a small bowl, strain in the lemon and vinegar from the fennel bowl and stir well.
Add the dill, rocket, pear and pecorino to the fennel bowl, pour on the dressing, toss lightly and serve.
Fennel orange salad with harissa dressing
Posted: August 2, 2013 Filed under: Fruit, Salad, Vegetarian | Tags: Fennel, Harrisa, Middle East, Nuts, Orange, Salad, The Hairy Dieters, Vegetarian 5 Comments
Every now and again, I find a dish that I like so much I do it over and over and over again. Like, for example, the Russian egg salad. Or, this cauliflower soup. And, let’s not even mention the whole #beetrootgate affair. This is one of those dishes, which has become one of the staples of last Winter (and Spring… and even Summer). It is just divine with smoked trout, baked salmon, cold cuts… And all this for less than 250 calories for a reasonable sized portion. Really, what not to like this salad?
Fennel orange salad with harissa dressing (adapted from Dave Myers and Si King’s The Hairy Dieters: How to Love Food and Lose Weight)
Ingredients
- 2 medium size fennel bulbs, trimmed, woody central core part removed and thinly sliced
- 2-3 oranges peeled (white parts out) and cut into 5cm chunks.
- 1/2 radicchio washed and thinly sliced (escarole or endive also will also works well)
- About 20 roasted salted almost slightly crushed with a mortar
- Handfull of raisins or sultanas (or a mix of both).
For the harissa dressing
- 1 tablespoon harissa
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 1 1/2 white wine vinegar
- 1 pinch ground coriander
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- Freshly ground black pepper
Method
Place the sliced fennel in a salad bowl. Carefully remove the white bitter parts of the orange and slice the oranges to divide flesh sections. Add to the bowl Crush the roasted salted almonds with a mortar and tip in the bowl. Add the sliced radicchio In a small bowl whisk well the harissa, honey, coriander and white wine vinegar. Pour in the olive oil in a very thin stream (spoon by spoon), beating all the while. The sauce is ready when it you obtain a glossy, slightly thick mixture. Drizzle the harissa dressing over the salad and gently toss to combine. Serve immediately.
Grapefruit and sumac salad
Posted: April 25, 2013 Filed under: Salad, Vegetarian | Tags: Grapefruit, Salad, Yotam Ottolenghi 2 Comments
My iPhone Samsung Galaxy Note, whom never lies, tells me today is going to be a nice sunny day. The tepid 24oC it promised, seems as good as an excuse as any other to together this lovely salad. It almost feels a bit too summery for the end of April, even. But when the sun is out you have to enjoy it while it is there. If it goes again, God only knows when it will be back. And, apparently, grapefruits are in season…
Pink grapefruit and sumac salad (adapted from Yotam Ottolenghi’s column in The Guardian)
Ingredients
- 5 pink or red grapefruits for the salad
- 300mL of grapefruit juice (a big one is suffice).
- 2 tbsp caster sugar
- 1 small dried red chilli
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1½ tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon sumac
- ½ red onion, peeled and very thinly sliced
- 2-3 small red chicory, separated, and large leaves cut in half on an angle
- 80g lamb’s lettuce (Valerianella locusta)
- Salt
Method
Top and tail five grapefruits so they’ll stand on a board. Cut down the side of each grapefruit, following its natural lines, to remove the skin and white pith. Over a bowl to catch the juices, cut in between the membranes to separate the individual segments. Dry the segments on kitchen paper and squeeze any juice from the skin and membranes into a saucepan.
Squeeze enough juice from the last grapefruit to make the juice in the pan up to 300ml. Add the sugar and chilli, bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer until the sauce thickens and you have about five tablespoons-worth of juice left – this could take up to 20 minutes. Set aside to cool down, then whisk in the oil, lemon juice, sumac and a quarter-teaspoon of salt.
In a large bowl, put the grapefruit segments, onion, chicory, watercress and basil. Pour over three-quarters of the dressing and toss gently. (If it seems dry, add all the dressing; otherwise, save it in the fridge for another leafy salad.) Serve at once.
Lucie Loves Food 