Shaved Fennel and Orange Salad

Written by Danielle Oteri

Last weekend, Casey and I presented a demo at the New York Botanical Garden’s Edible Garden series.

Unlike last time, where we took the week’s theme of garlic and onions and added eggs, cheese, and bacon to make carbonara, we kept it healthy and fresh with a shaved fennel and orange salad this time around.

Fennel is a perennial, so it grows all year and a wintertime supermarket version will still taste pretty good. Around these parts, it’s best enjoyed from August through late October.

Fennel originated in the Southern Mediterranean and can be found in recipes in ancient Greece and Rome.

In the Middle Ages, it was used for a variety of medicinal purposes and was important in warding off “flying venom,” which was believed to be a major cause of disease.

However, fennel also shows up in recipes throughout the medieval world, as all parts including the seeds (technically fruits) are edible.

The shaved fennel and orange salad is something I’ve dubbed “Gladiator Salad” because of its Roman origins.

It’s a simple mixture of thinly sliced raw fennel, oranges, olive oil, salt, and pepper that hearkens back to ancient Rome.

The story goes that legionaries on the march would carry a bulb of fennel and an orange in their packs, needing little more to prepare a salad than a knife.

For our modern take on it (which includes a red onion), we showed off a few more sophisticated techniques. Well, Casey did.

While preparing for the demo, I sent Casey an email with the recipe and she wrote back, “Are we supreming the oranges?”

“What the heck does it mean to supreme an orange?” I said aloud to myself. Fortunately, I had the good sense to Google it before asking.

Soon I found that it was pronounced “SOO-prehm” and is a simple process of removing the skin and pith and segmenting the oranges. And I learned how to actually do it along with the audience.

Casey also demo-ed the mandoline, a tool I only pull out when I’m making potato chips that absolutely need to be paper thin.

Ingeniously, she showed us how she uses a kitchen glove as a protective measure against the mandoline’s dangerously sharp blade, eschewing that awful slicing handle that leaves behind way too much of the veggie.

I heard at least half a dozen people comment that though they weren’t fans of fennel because of the black licorice notes, they loved this shaved fennel and orange salad.

If you fall into the camp of black jelly bean haters [Casey: blegh.] [Danielle: give them to me!], you may still fall in love with fennel.

Not to mention you’ll keep yourself safe from any “flying venom” this fall and winter.

Shaved Fennel and Orange Salad

Yield: 4 servings

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Shaved fennel and orange salad combines juicy orange slices with paper-thin fennel and red onion for a crunchy raw salad.

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Ingredients

• 1 navel oranges
• 1 large fennel bulb
• 1 small red onion
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt or kosher salt
• freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

1. With a paring knife, remove the peel and white pith from the oranges.
2. Hold the peeled orange over a large bowl and cut between each "rib" of the orange to remove the sweet segment of fruit, allowing the segment and any juice to fall into the bowl.
3. Squeeze the remaining orange pith to get any extra juice out of it.
4. Cut the fronds and the root end off the fennel bulb, and discard.
5. Cut the bulb in half lengthwise and safely use a mandoline to make paper-thin slices.
6. Cut the red onion in half lengthwise, peel, and cut off both root and tip ends.
7. Take one half of the onion and make paper-thin slices on the mandoline as well. Reserve half the onion for another use.
8. Toss the sliced fennel and onion with the orange segments and juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.

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Nutrition Information:

Yield: 4 Serving Size: 1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 92Total Fat: 7gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 6gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 236mgCarbohydrates: 8gFiber: 2gSugar: 5gProtein: 1g

The nutritional information above is computer-generated and only an estimate.

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