Move aside food glitterati, this is one seriously seasonal winter salad. All the ingredients are at their peak when it’s freezing outside.
This is the only time of year I like eating oranges (Spanish Navals are a favourite) because they taste fabulous; sweet and plump. Fennel is crisp with mild aniseed flavours and both olives and capers have finished maturing in brine after the October harvest.
This salad is particularly brilliant with roast fish (sea bass!).
Miraculous ingredients: Fennel (round, fat bulb), Kalamata black olives, non pareille capers
Fennel, orange, black olive and caper salad
Ingredients
1 fennel bulb, very finely sliced (a mandolin is fantastic for this)
2 oranges, peeled with a knife and cut into segments
25g Kalamata pitted black olives (a handful)
20g Non pareille capers in brine (a handful), drained
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt to season
Method
Prepare the orange segments; use a sharp knife to slice of the top and bottom of the orange. Stand the orange upright and slice downward to cut away the peel and all the pith down to the orange flesh. Hold the peeled and pith-less orange over a salad bowl (so the juices can drip in!) and carefully cut just inside each segment to free it from the internal membrane.
Use a mandolin to finely slice the fennel. Reserve the fronds finish off the salad. Add the sliced fennel, black olives, capers, olive oil and sea salt to the orange segments in the salad bowl. Mix well. Sprinkle with the fennel fronds and serve.
Preparation time 15 minutes, serves 4 as a side salad