Greetings from Northern California! For the next two months, I am working in the kitchen at Three Stone Hearth, a Community Supported Kitchen in Berkeley, California. Three Stone Hearth is preparing healthy, nutrient-dense foods, from scratch, for pickup and delivery to San Francisco Bay Area residents. I am thrilled to be cooking, learning, contributing, and sharing with like-minded chefs and volunteers. Good stuff!
Tonight, I made a Fresh Herb, Grapefruit, and Fennel Salad. Everyone at the table agreed - it’s a keeper. Crunchy, fresh, and light, it makes for a wonderful winter salad.
Preparing fennel is simple. Start by cutting off the stalks, right where the bulb starts. Then, trim the root end. Stand the bulb flat on the root end. Slice it in half, vertically. Then, use a knife to remove the core from each half by making a v-like slice at the bottom, similar to removing the core from half a head of cabbage. With care, slice the fennel paper-thin, using a knife or mandolin.
For this recipe, instead of grapefruit, we used a mixture of blood oranges and Cara Cara oranges, a type of navel orange grown in California and Arizona. The Cara Caras have a gorgeous grapefruit color, but are sweeter and less acidic than grapefruit. I can’t resist them. Dee-lightful!
We make a variation of this salad using pomelo and wax apples in Taipei with a yuzu style dressing that has just a hint of thyme. I look forward every year to the fall-winter when pomelo are perfectly ripe and the size of a volleyball. The flavors mixed with the crispness of the fennel is just divine. With a glass of Sauv Blanc, this self-professed meat eater can be a vegetarian. I have to find some legal way to bring back the fruit to you in the US!