In my quest for improving my eating habits by incorporating more raw nutritious foods, salads have taken centre stage as a main meal. Many people eat their salads as a side dish and may think this could not possibly fill their empty tummies at lunchtime or dinner. I’ve found that there are salad recipes which are substantial and filling without necessarily eating a huge bowl. Long gone are the days of having a few leaves of iceberg lettuce with cucumber and tomato served on the side of my meat, chicken or seafood dish. Nowadays there are many types of leafy greens so if you’re eating salad daily, you certainly have lots of choices. Like most meals, a bit of planning and variety is the key.
I haven’t grown up eating fennel often and vaguely recall it’s particularly strong anise taste which I wasn’t too fond of. Nonetheless to add some variety to my list of salads, I thought I’d try it as a standalone salad base. What was interesting was that by shaving the fennel I found the taste wasn’t as distinctive as I remember. In fact, I thought it was delicious! So here is my favourite raw fennel salad with nuts and seeds for a bit of protein and fruit to sweeten the taste.
Ingredients:
1 bulb fennel – large-sized
2 stalks of celery
1/2 packham pear
1/4 cup walnut pieces
1 tablespoon sunflower seeds
1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
Method:
- Wash the fennel, slice a bit off the bottom to remove the hard base
- Using a mandolin slicer on a fine setting, slice the bulb of fennel until you reach the stalks. Place in a salad bowl.
- Slice the celery stalks and add to fennel
- Cut the pear into quarters and remove the seeds. Slice and add to the salad bowl too.
- Mix in the walnuts and sunflower seeds
- For the dressing, combine the olive oil and lemon juice in a small bowl and whisk lightly with a fork
- Pour the salad dressing over the salad ingredients and toss to combine
- Season with salt and pepper to taste
Serves 2
From a nutritional perspective, fennel is known for its high levels of vitamin c and potassium and is also high in fibre.
Enjoy!
Georgia
Feeding the Body, Mind & Soul 