More From the Healthy Ones

After having made this salad (and yes, I am quoting myself — sue me!) approximately 100 times in the last weeks, we all got a little bored of broccoli. This is when I remembered a similar take on raw vegetables with fennel. It’s more of a guideline than a recipe and (i feel supremely pontifying typing these words) you can use the base with many different vegetables.

The fun thing about this salad and the other one, is the classic combo of acid and salt, somewhat like a salt and vinegar chip. You could replace the fennel with carrots, or green beans or cooked potatoes even.

Fennel Slaw with Toasted Sesame

prep time: 10min, marinate for as long as you can stand!

1-2 fennel bulbs cut in thin slices, with a mandoline if you have one you showoff, you!
juice of one big lemon
1 tsp salt
2 tsp sesame seeds
olive oil

In a salad bowl, mix the lemon juice and salt. Add the sliced fennel and toss to combine. Heat up a pan on high heat and toast the sesame until fragrant. Sprinkle still hot over the fennel and add olive oil. Eat straight up or let it marinate a while.

the Gwyneth Salad

Lately, we’ve been having lots of dinners that we were so impatient to eat, that i forgot to take pictures of them. Or that i was too embarassed to blog about for lack of a ‘recipe’ to share. These dinners having all been on the fattening side of life (I am talking ‘Raclette’, here people!), this is where i seem to still be stuck, too.

Enter: the gwyneth salad

I saw this salad when it appeared in the ny times dining section and was strangely appealed to it. Really, though who wouldn’t want to it a salad involving raw broccoli? I can hear my sister making gagging sound all the way from Switzerland (wave! hi!) and frantically trying to tell me not to make ANYTHING involving broccoli.

Good thing I learned long ago that it doesn’t always pay to follow directives from your older sibling - one incident involved me eating soap after having been told it was chocolate. I was 2, and no, no bubbles appeared out of my mouth and nose, contrary to one particular tintin album - and followed through with the recipe. Of course, I couldn’t help but substitute a few things here and there, for instance 4 raw garlics cloves and raw broccoli sounds like something only a crazy person on a macrobiotic diet would eat (hence the ‘gwyneth’ for all you trashy magazine readers out there). And 3/4 cup of olive oil seemed equally excessive in light of our recent raclette-fest, so i used enough to cover my pan. oh, and I only marinated it for about 40 min, because I couldn’t stop myself from eating it!

Marinated Raw Broccoli Salad

prep time: 10min, marinate for 1h, I dare you!

1-2 heads of broccoli, cut in florets with the stalks sliced a few mm thick
1 1/2 tsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 peeled garlic clove, halved
pinch of dried red pepper
1 tsp toasted sesame oil
olive oil

salad bowl, saucepan

Mix the vinegar and salt in a salad bowl and toss through the broccoli. Cover the bottom of a saucepan with olive oil and heat the cumin seeds and the garlic clove until fragrant.* Add the sesame oil and the dried red pepper. Pour the mixture over the broccoli, combine and marinate at room temperature for 1 h. The salad keeps in the fridge for about a day or so. don’t forget to take out the garlic before serving!

*oh, and if you feel like swishing some hot oil around your pan chef-style… don’t do it. Olive oil doesn’t look really great when it’s splashed on a white wall…