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