“He, our grass widower, found the cooking of vegetables too complicated and he had not mastered the timing technique…’Why bother?’ he said, crunching a sweet, fresh raw carrot. ‘It only spoils the flavour, and I still have my molars.'”

Kathleen Le Riche, Cooking Alone

Recently (last summer), Tried and Supplied founder, Domini Hogg had a ‘big’ birthday. We had a weekend house party (go to this post for more on house parties) and on the Saturday of the weekend we had a sort of picnic buffet.

As well as a comforting shepherds’ pie, we offered three salads. And it was the salads which were noted by many in their subsequent thank yous. A straw poll for the most popular salad revealed that all three were neck and neck.

This carrot and fennel salad was one of them, the others being A Golden, Fragrant Salad of Cauliflower and Turmeric, and Green Beans With Miso Mush.

It’s vegetarian… and vegan.

Recipe for super-simple, slightly Asian carrot and fennel salad

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 2 carrots
• 1 bulb of fennel
• 4 tbsps sesame oil
• 4 tbsps thick, rich soy sauce (go to this post for more on this)
• 1 tbsp sesame seeds – ideally mixed, black and white, for colour; or you could use furikake

Method

1. Slice the carrot very thinly – ideally with a mandoline, or if you don’t have on, with a potato peeler.
2. Cut the fronds off the fennel, and retain for garnish.
3. Slice the fennel very thin in the same manner of the carrot.
4. Put both carrot and fennel in a salad bowl. Dress with the soy and sesame oil. Garnish with the sesame seeds, and fennel fronds.