This year, we planted fennel in our garden for the first time.
The seedlings grew well, making delicate frothy tops and small bulbs – I think we planted them too closely together to get really big ones. We’ve been eating them thinly sliced on pizza and also in this simple salad.
Every fresh ingredient in this dish comes from our garden – it was a recipe that came about purely by chance, as we had friends coming for dinner and needed a last minute accompaniment. It was so tasty that we’ve made it several times since!
- 1 small fennel
- flat leafed parsley
- fresh oregano
- cherry tomatoes
- extra-virgin olive oil
- balsamic vinegar
- fine sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
Thinly slice the bulb of the fennel on a mandoline. Strip the leaves from the parsley and oregano, discard the stems. Slice the cherry tomatoes in half. Combine all the fresh ingredients, then dress with a little olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and season to taste with salt and pepper. Allow to sit for half an hour or so to allow the flavours to meld, then garnish with a few of the fennel fronds before serving.
. . . . .
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
How delicious! I love fennel and it is cheap and plentiful here. I eat it almost every day in one way or another. I will mist definitely be trying your lovely salad.
Debra, our local Italian delis are full of big healthy bulbs as well! But most of them without the fronds, do they leave the fronds on in Italy?
That is one lovely colourful salad.
Thanks love! It was extra nice to be able to get it all from the garden!
This is beautiful and I LOVE fennel. I envy you being able to grow it. I have tried for years – from seed and nursery and still only have managed to get an herbal variety to grow. I love soups made from fennel and roasted fennel- but have never made a salad. Next time I see some fresh I’m going to try this salad! Thanks Celia!
Heidi, I’ve never roasted fennel (I don’t think slicing it onto the top of pizza counts). Or made soup from it! Thank you for the inspiration! xx
I love that everything came from your garden Celia. My mom would love this!
Have a super week ahead.
:-) Mandy xo
Mandy, is your mum a gardener too? We were pretty chuffed that it all tasted so good! :) xxx
I simply love fennel. It’s an unsung hero, in my opinion. It’s gorgeous with prawns, too!
Prawns! Misky, thank you, I never thought of that before, but now that I have, I can see how the flavours would go! :)
This would be a nice salad for the Thanksgiving table next week. I most often use fennel in my stir-fry or soups, will have to take another look at it for salads. :)
Judy, I’m surprised at so many people using fennel in soup, I’d never heard of that before! I’ll have to give it a go, thank you!
I saw NQN’s post about your fennel, they look so good, I’d want to make a Sicilian pasta with fennel recipe (I think it’s poetically named pasta with the sardines in the sea…) :-D
Saucy, my friend Ellen came over with Italian fennel the other day – just the fronds – it was being sold at the Italian grocers specifically for the pasta dish you mentioned!
It’s a very pretty salad. I recently tried to buy fennel and was disappointed to find it was only available with the fronds all chopped off – so wasteful; the fronds are always a beautiful finishing touch xx
Charlie, the fronds are delicious too, but the plant is a wild thing to keep on a shelf with all its greenery intact!
I love fennel Celia. It’s one of my favourites. It tastes good however you prepare it and what a treat to have it in the garden. You better keep NQL away from those fluffy green tops.
Hahaha…she’s welcome to as much as she wants, although it’s started to go to seed now!
Fresh and delicious, Celia!
Thanks hon! xx
Beautiful – love fennel! We grow it but to get big fat bulbs you have to keep banking the earth up in trenches. They still taste good if they’re not so voluptuous though :)
Aha, *that’s* the secret!! Thanks Chica, I never knew!
What a gorgeous photo! I think your salad looks wonderfully refreshing, and I love that there’s oregano in there! And anything shaved by way of a mandolin is always a winner too. Yummy! xx
Em, thank you! I like shaving all things with a mandolin, but often end up shaving my fingers too, which is not so pleasant. :)
Looks fabulous! I never really knew what else to do with Fennel aside from seasoning fish, I will definitely try this.
Hope you like it, thanks for stopping by! :)
Nice! Fresh, simple and insanely tasty – I adore fennel!
The oregano and parsley make a huge difference too, A! :)
Fennel and I did not have a love affair at first sight because of its liquorice flavour ~ but the relationship blossomed so I now do miss it when not in season. Altho’ use it in a lot of stirfries, love putting it in various salads, especially with orange. Must try it with tomatoes: looks lovely!!
Eha, my family weren’t instant fans either, but they’ve grown to love it!
How lucky to have your own fresh homegrown fennels. I love them and get at least one box per week (in the store I buy them they put two bulbs in a plastic box.) They are so versatile and yummy smelling. Your salad looks positively appetizing and the epitome of fresh.
ps had never considered using them as pizza topping, must give it a try!
ps when you use it as pizza topping, when do you add it? right away? and just as-is and raw, right?
Azita, we simply mandoline it over the top of the sauce and cheese and bake! :) Here’s a photo…
Fennel grows wild here. Lovely salad Celia :)
Wow, that would be wonderful, Tandy! So many people struggle to grow it, how glorious to have it growing wild!
Celia how wonderful to be able to make a recipe entirely from things from your garden! One day…
One day soon, love.. :) xx
when you mentioned your fennel in the garden a while back, it inspired me to plant some of my very own and my babies are now coming along nicely, thanks for the inspiration! I absolutely love the flavours of fennel, its so refreshing and crisp eaten raw :)
Lisa, that’s great news! Ours are going to seed now, but they were wonderful while they lasted – definitely something we’d plant again!
I love fennel! To the point that I got told (nicely) that not every salad needs fennel in it. You are so fortunate to be able to make a salad from your garden – although I know how much work goes into it.
Hahaha…Nancy, I get told things like that too sometimes. “I know you love this, buuuutt…” :)
Hi Celia, I came across your blog not long ago after Lorraine posted about the fennel from your garden. Just wanted to say I have been reading my way through all your posts and have been thoroughly enjoying it, am loving this blog and I think the way that you live and eat is to be admired. Your garden is just wonderful, if I ever have a garden I hope it is half as good as yours. Going to make this recipe tomorrow night, I love fennel and I’m always looking for new recipes, thank you.
How kind, thanks so much for stopping by! Our garden is wild and self-sown at the moment, but still productive. Just not very neat! :)
WOW! That looks and sounds amazing! The color is awesome, too! Gotta LOVE eating a rainbow, eh!?
It’s supposed to be healthy for us! :)
Everything looks wonderful…but that is you…
You’re so sweet Norma, thank you! xx
I love fresh fennel in a salad. Yours coming straight from your garden must have been delicious.
Karen, they were only babies, and yes, very sweet and delicious! Hope you’re still having a wonderful time on holidays! :)
Ah your salad looks so delicious, fennel is also great with tomatoes and balsamico. I am a little puzzled when you say to slice it on a mandolin, I can only think of the music instrument, but slicing fennel on it………..hm????? Help me out.
Cornelia, a mandolin is a musical instrument, a mandoline is a cutting tool, a bit like a chip slicer.. :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandoline
Beautiful looking dish. I do not grow fennel but get garden fresh ones from Locust Grove’s garden where I volunteer. How wonderful that everything in the dish is from your garden.
Thanks Norma, I know you understand how wonderful that feels! :)
My family never cooked fennel and this salad would have been something that everyone would have enjoyed. Love that your garden provided all of the salad’s ingredients. It’s satisfying in a number of ways.
I recently saw one of “my” TV chefs mention that there are male & female fennel plants. The females have more flavor. You can tell the difference by the size of the bulb. Females are rounder than their relatively flatter males. In Spring, when we see “baby fennel” in markets, it’s normally the male plants that the farmers have thinned from the fields. Interesting stuff, huh? :)
John, that is great advice about the male and female plants, I’ll take a closer look next time, thank you!
Coincidentally, the chef that said that is Mario Batali. He and Lidia Bastianich — another favorite — are opening a gigantic Italian store here. It’s 63,000 sq ft (5900 sq m) and has everything you could possibly want in and for Italian cooking, including restaurants and cooking classes. I cannot wait for the porch to be done so I can do a little shopping. :)
You know I’ve never tried fennel like that & only had fennel seeds in Italian sausage. Didn’t much care for them since I think they used a little too much but this looks so pretty I’d give it a try. I’m going to add that to my little garden for next spring I think.
Diane, maybe buy a fennel first to see if you like it? I once great an entire bed of radishes, and no-one else would eat it.. :)
Ah, sort of like my big tomato patch that my husband lovely tended only to find out that he refuses to touch fresh tomatoes. Spaghetti sauce is #1 in his book but a fresh tomato? Nah