EMERGENCY FENNEL SALAD
by Cheesemonger Carolyn
Beloved cheese people, this is my first original recipe for the website! I am quite proud of this bit of innovation and want to tell you the story of how it came to be, but I won't be hurt if you’re more of a “skip ahead and start cooking” type.
In recent years, I’ve assumed the mantel of head chef for my extended family’s Thanksgiving feast. (That’s what happens when you become a professional cheesemonger, I guess, people think you know things about food!) It’s always my goal to balance a menu mostly consisting of rich, delicious carb-laden sides with light, colorful vegetable dishes, and this year I planned to include a new-to-me green bean salad recipe alongside our traditional roasted Brussels sprouts. I woke up Thursday morning, ran a Turkey Trot 5k wherein my twelve-year-old track star cousin beat my time by nearly ten minutes, then arrived home ready to cook... only to discover that there was not a single green bean in the kitchen! My dear mother had misread my grocery list and cooked the requested two pounds of green beans earlier that week (and served them with Swedish meatballs that she made before I’d even arrived home to enjoy them, can you believe it?!) Rest in peace, green bean salad plans. This sent me into a slight frenzy that led to a trip to my aunt’s crisper drawer, an anxiety-fueled burst of inspiration, and finally this little gem of a recipe: the Emergency Fennel Salad. And it was fantastic.
This salad has since become a family favorite, even found its way into our Christmas dinner menu, and it’s easy to see why: crisp crunchy veg, bright green herbs, sweet little bites of apple and pomegranate, rich nutty almonds, all elevated by the beautiful raw milk tang of our Marieke Aged Gouda. It’s perfect at a holiday feast, yes, but even more so now, in January, as we slog through grey days and roasted root vegetable fatigue. I hope it provides you with some joy and brightness as we wait for this year’s market season to begin!
INGREDIENTS
• 1/2 cup whole raw almonds
• 3-4 tbsp olive oil, divided
• 1 large fennel bulb, stalks and fronds remove
• 4 stalks celery
• 1 large apple, preferably a tart variety
• 1 cup parsley leaves and tender stems
• 2-4 oz Marieke Aged Gouda, coarsely grated
• Kosher salt
• 1 lemon
• 1/2 cup pomegranate arils, for garnish (optional)
PROCEDURE
1. Fry the almonds: heat one tbsp olive oil over medium high in a small skillet. Add the almonds and cook, tossing frequently and seasoning with salt, until browned and fragrant, 2-3 min. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate to cool.
2. Prep the salad veg: Quarter, core, and thinly slice the fennel bulb and apple. Trim and thinlyslice the celery. Coarsely chop the parsley. Toss all the veg together in a large wide bowl.
3. Garnish the salad: Chop the cooled fried almonds and sprinkle over the salad, along with pomegranate arils (if using). Stir in 2oz aged gouda and taste-test, adding more cheese if desired.
4. Dress the salad! This is not an exact science. Start by drizzling about 2 tbsp olive oil over top, then add the juice of half the lemon and a generous pinch of salt. Toss to coat the salad evenly, then taste and adjust accordingly. Depending on the sweetness of your produce, and how heavily dressed you like your salad, you may want to juice the other half of the lemon and add that, another tbsp olive oil, and/or more salt.
5. Serve and enjoy! Texture will be best the day it’s made, but leftovers can keep in the fridge for an additional day or two without losing too much crispness.
NOTES
• Some grocery stores have little cups of prepared pomegranate seeds which are lovely and convenient. But if you find yourself dealing with a whole pomegranate, you’ll want to use the arils from about half of it, and it’s easiest to seed one quarter at a time, submerged in a bowl of cold water! The arils sink to the bottom while any other little bits of peel and pith float to the top and are easy to skim away before draining.
• Adaptation is the name of the game—dried cranberries could be nice if you don’t want to bother with the pomegranate, use walnuts if you don’t have almonds or skip the nuts to keep it allergen-friendly, add an extra celery stalk or two if your fennel bulb is on the smaller side. Make the salad work for you!
• On that note, a little drizzle of honey can be a nice addition to the salad dressing. I didn’t find it necessary in testing, but it helped a lot on Thanksgiving when I needed to perk up a particularly sad bunch of celery stalks.
• This recipe makes about four side-salad portions, but stretches a lot further if part of a larger feast. Still, feel free adjust the veg amounts as needed! You can also just eat about two-thirds of it alone and call that dinner, which is what I am doing as I write!
• I still have not made the original green bean salad I’d planned on! But I’m sure it’s great, and if you’re curious, it’s “green bean salad with fried almonds” on Smitten Kitchen, and I’d probably add some grated Marieke or goat cheddar to the mix!