Fennel and Chickpea salad - it's a goody

There’s nothing worse than going to restaurant and not being hungry. Personally, it always leads to bad choices and disappointment. I don’t want to order anything indulgent like the 300g sirloin or home made chicken pie and chips (even though they’re recommended by the chef for good reason), no, you want something light and tasty. But  if you’re not at a light-and-tasty restaurant, they can get this SO wrong!

I went to for dinner at a steak restaurant a while back and wasn’t feeling up to a steak or a burger so I went with a…wait for it…salad, well done Kate, very original! But the salad itself sounded great; rare slices of sirloin, Camembert, rocket, roasted cherry tomatoes, caramelized onions and their balsamic glaze – It wasn’t lame. In principal, these flavours are all great, but concentrating harder on my wine and conversation rather than the combination of flavours led to my downfall. Too many strong flavours crowding a plate is NEVER a good idea!

The salad arrived drenched in a strong, sweet, balsamic reduction to the point that the meat began to taste a little more like biltong than anything else. The caramelised onions seemed to have been caramelised in the same balsamic reduction, resulting in my inability to taste the tomatoes or cheese and they served it to me with extra balsamic on the side(just encase). It wasn’t pleasant. If I was hungry I might have attempted to send it back, but instead I pushed my plate aside and resorted to my wine and great conversation.

On so many occasions I have found salads at restaurants to be either overwhelming or completely underwhelming. There are either too many flavours or no flavours at all. So where do we find the balance? I find it’s in concentrating on 1 or 2 simple, strong ingredients to hold the dish and then allowing the others to compliment the idea.

Ingredients such as chicken, beetroot, pine nuts, parmesan, coriander, tuna, goats cheese, rocket, marinated aubergines, Parma ham, and capers are all strong flavours and shouldn’t be crowded. Use them sparingly, whilst you find other, less robust, ingredients to agree with them. In the same vain your salad dressing should be exactly that, a dressing, not a moat in which the salad fatly sits.

A good salad I always think should be like Mohamed Ali; punchy but with a mellow after taste, floats like a butterfly stings like a bee…you get what I mean.

The next two recipes on my blog will be examples of salads that, I think, have the right flavour combinations; the first was inspired by a friend of mine, Bryony Kruger; she gave me the idea at a supper club and I just added to it. I've also concentrated on salads without lettuce, because there seems to be an anti-carb revolution happening at the moment and I can't tell you how many of my friends are seeking out new ideas for salads because they so bloody bored with Caesar-bla-bloody-Greek-Greek-vibes. (Yes, I said vibes) So here goes, first up:

Baby Fennel and Chickpea

Ingredients: (serves 2 as a main, 4 as a side)

• 10 baby fennel bulbs and stalks (If you can't find them you can use 1 large/2 medium fennel bulbs)
• 1 tin chick peas (drained)
• Juice of 1 large lemon/2 small lemons
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• good grinding salt and pepper
• OPTIONAL: 
• 1 round of feta
• handful of cherry tomatoes (halved)
• handful of sugar snaps (chopped)

Method:

• thinly slice the fennel and plop into a bowl
• add drained chick peas

• mix together olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper and pour over the fennel and chickpeas. Toss. Eat.
• If you want to make it a bit more robust add the chopped tomatoes, sugar snaps and crumb over the feta - bloody marvelous let me tell you!