Orange, Fennel, Green Olive, Dill and Almond Salad
My new favourite salad!
Apologies if I am going on and on about how amazing it is to have a proper garden, but it is! Going from a small suburban block in Melbourne to a house in the Adelaide Hills with an extensive well established sprawling garden in pretty special. I am forever grateful for the previous owner who was created this magical place. Clearly a lot of love went into our new home.
We were lucky to get 3 or 4 lemons a year from our poor little tree back in Melbourne and now I am actually at a loss over what to do with the crazy amount of citrus our garden is producing this winter. I predict a preserved lemon recipe coming up soon!
Along with lemons, we also have mandarine and orange trees. And the fruit they produce are seriously delicious. The girls have been enjoying lots of freshly squeezed OJ and a perfect mandarin in their lunch box everyday. I have been dreaming up ways to use them in my cooking. Being salad obsessed, of course I decided to make a salad! I will make a dessert as well but I just don't have that big a sweet tooth, so salad first!
Last year I shared one of my go to recipes for a fennel, grape, dill, almonds and green olive salad. So this is a version of that. Orange and fennel have long been friends as they are perfect together. What really brings this salad all together for me is the marinated green olives. Their rich saltiness balanced out the sweet oranges perfectly.
It's important to use really good green olives with a quality marinade– I buy mine from the amazing Pasadena Foodland here in Adelaide which has a seriously impressive array of olives. The ones I use are marinated in garlic, chilli and coriander. I drizzle a little of the marinade over the finished salad as I love the crunch and burst of flavour the whole coriander seeds bring to the salad. So buy the best olives you get get!
Orange, Fennel, Green Olive, Dill and Almond Salad
Prep time: 40 minutes
Makes: 4 serves
Dietary guideline: This is vegan and gluten free. For a FODMAP friendly adaptation see the end of the recipe.
Ingredients
I large fennel bulb
150g of pitted chilli marinated green olives (reserve the marinade/oil)
3 oranges
½ cup of blanched almonds
Small bunch of dill washed, dried and roughly chopped
1 small golden shallot peeled and thinly sliced into rounds
For the dressing
¼ cup lemon juice (strained of pith)
¼ cup plus 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon of caster sugar (or honey/maple syrup)
2 teaspoon of American style mustard (or Dijon)
1 teaspoon of salt flakes
1 garlic clove
Lots of freshly cracked pepper
Method
Toast the almonds in a pre-heated moderate oven for approximately 10 minutes or until just going golden. Tip: Set a timer so you don't forget about them! Set aside to cool. Roughly chop if desired.
Next make the dressing. Using a mortar and pestle*, place the salt and garlic in the mortar and grind together with the pestle to form a rough paste. When it's all nice and mushed up, add 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil and mix further to incorporate. This process helps the raw garlic taste better and less full on. Scape the garlic our with a rubber spatula into a jar. Add the remaining salad dressing ingredients, shake well and taste. Adjust for seasoning and add more sugar if you like it sweeter. Store in the fridge until needed.
Finely slice the fennel either by hand or using a slice attachment on your food processor or a mandolin. Place in a bowl and toss with about 1/3 cup of the dressing.
Cut both the ends (at least 2cm) off each orange. Place an orange end side down on a chopping board and using a sharpe knife slice the peel and white pith off in a curved motion (following the shape of the fruit). You won't get it all off perfectly on the first go, thats okay. Flip the orange over and repeat, cutting off any remaining skin and pith. Repeat this for the other two oranges. Once the oranges are all nice and nude, slice horizontally into thin rounds.
Slice the olives in half horizontally.
To assemble the salad, toss everything into a bowl with a little of the reserved chilli marinade (about 1 tablespoon). Taste and add more of the salad dressing if you think it needs it. Transfer to a larger salad bowl or individual salad plates and sprinkle with a little extra salt flakes and freshly crackled black pepper.
*If you don't have a mortar and pestle, you can use a chopping board and the back of a dessert spoon to grind the garlic into a paste. Chop the garlic up roughly first to help the process.
FODMAP friendly adaptation: Omit the shallots from the salad and the garlic from the dressing. 1/2 a cup of fennel is considered safe according to Monash so just make sure your serving is not too large (about 1/5th of the salad).
