Char-grilled & Salt Cured Fennel Salad with Orange, Red Onion & Mint
Serves: 4
Chef Top Tip
"Fennel is an ideal vegetable for BBQ cooking, its aniseed flavour mellows beautifully as it char-grills. In contrast to the sweet, grilled fennel I add an element of crunch here by quickly curing some raw fennel with sugar, orange zest, and some pink Himalayan sea salt; a lovely contrast of flavours, textures and appealing colours."
Ingredients
- 3 large fennel bulbs
- 2 large juicy oranges
- 1 medium red onion, peeled
- 4 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 2 tbsp freshly chopped mint
- 1 tbsp Himalayan pink salt
- 1 tbsp sugar
- Fresh mint leaves to finish
Method
- Firstly, prepare the cured fennel: take one of the fennel and peel it.
- Using a mandoline, shave the fennel very thinly into a bowl.
- Take the two oranges and zest them.
- Mix the sugar, salt, and orange zest together; mix well with the shaved fennel and place to one side to cure.
- Trim the roots from the end of the two remaining fennel and cut the bulbs length-ways into 5mm thick slices.
- Cook on a BBQ or char-grill for 5 minutes on each side, until tender and charred all over.
- Whilst the fennel is cooking, peel the zested oranges and cut both into thin slices, along with the red onion.
- Whisk together the balsamic vinegar, olive oil and chopped mint; season to taste.
- Place a bed of the salt cured fennel on a serving plate, layer the grilled fennel slices along with the oranges and red onion on top.
- Drizzle over the minted dressing, scatter over the small mint leaves and serve.
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