SUMMER APPLE AND FENNEL SALAD
Is it okay if we squeeze in one more crisp and light salad before summer officially ends?
Even though I'm BEYOND ready for fall (ughhhhhh sweaters at all times, yes pleaseeee) I still think that this salad needs a mention.
ALSO. I'm super down to pair it with a butternut squash soup. Festive! Annnnnd did I mention it comes with a easy home made dressing??
Okay, so.
It's as easy as it looks.
The only trick here is that you're going to want to invest in this litttttlle tiny amazing kitchen tool called a mandolin. I've seen these in bars, I've seen them in restaurants and of course, my friend who's a chef in San Diego has like 3 in his kitchen
THEY. ARE. EPIC.
It's basically a little razor blade that you can use to turn anything into thinly sliced pieces.
Cool right? For example, fennel is amazing but it has a prettttty intense taste to it. So if you want a little bit of the taste but don't want to feel like you're biting right into a bulb of fennel, you use a mandolin.
Same thing for the apples...we didn't want overwhelming bites of crunch, we just wanted to add a little flava flaaav.
But I mean, these things are even great if you want to chop up a cucumber really quick and make a cucumber salad or make thinly sliced potato chips from a potato! There's seriously like a million things you can do with it and you can find them for cheap.
I'll leave a link at the bottom! You want to go for one that's around 20 dollars. The mega cheap ones have a shitty blade and will pretty much be useless.
Okay, other than that, here's what you'll need:
+ 1 Green Apple
+ 1 Bulb Fennel (They literally sell just the bulbs at Trader Joe's)
+ 2 Cups Baby Arugula
+ 1/4 Cup Pomegranate Seeds
+ 1/2 Red Onion (Thinly Sliced)
+ Garnish with slivered Almonds
DRESSING:
+ 1/2 teaspoon Dijon Mustard
+ 2 Tablespoons EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil)
+ 1 1/2 Tablespoons of Lemon Juice (They sell Fresh Lemon Juice at Whole Foods Called Santa Cruz, that we really like)
+ 2 TBS Freshly Squeezed OJ
+ Sea salt and Black pepper
What to do:
Luckily this salad is pretty straight forward. Use your mandolin to shave the green apple, red onion and the fennel. Place it on top of the arugula, sprinkle in some pom seeds, add all your shaved fruits and veggies, then top off with some almonds.
For the dressing, you can just blend it together or whisk it, and then pour it on your salad and voila!
What I like about this recipe too is that everything for the salad is cheap and whatever you don't use, you can just put it in a little baggy and save it for the next time you have the salad!
(The second one is always the best because everything is already chopped up and prepared!)
Buy a mandolin, TRUST me.
Find more recipes like this on instagram @mccauleytawpash :)!