Fennel, pickled onion & coconut salad with jalapeño and curry leaf salt dressing
The key in Mallika Basu's recipe is to combine seasonal produce with simply tantalising flavours that get taste buds and conversations going. This salad provides plenty, with sweet, sour, bitter and fragrant anise. Grab-and-go fresh coconut pieces are quickly blended for texture. As dry curry leaves are readily available, but less aromatic than fresh versions, they rise to the occasion here, crushed with sea salt and warmed a little. If chicory isn’t available, you could add radicchio, kohlrabi or stick to fennel, adding one more bulb to balance the flavours.
- Serves4
- CourseSide
- Prepare10 mins
- Cook-
- Total time10 mins
- PlusSteeping
Ingredients
- 1 medium red onion
- 3 limes
- ½ tsp table salt
- 80g pack coconut chunks
- 1g dried curry leaves
- 1 tsp sea salt flakes
- 10 slice/s Cooks’ Ingredients Jalapeño Peppers, drained, plus a little juice and more to serve
- 1 bulb/s fennel
- 140g pack red chicory
- 1 tbsp extra virgin coconut oil
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Method
Halve the onion, then thinly slice into halfmoons. Add the juice of 11/2 limes and the table salt, then leave covered for 2 hours, or ideally overnight. Mix to coat evenly a couple of times.
Blend the coconut chunks until crumbly. Using your fingers, crush the curry leaves in a pestle and mortar, then add the sea salt and grind to a coarse powder. Chop the jalapeños.
Cut the fennel stalks (reserve the fronds) where they are attached to the bulbs, then remove the hard outer hard layer. Trim the base and thinly slice what’s left. The stalks and outer layer are great in broth. Remove any bruised outer leaves from the chicory, cut the base and peel off the leaves.
In a large bowl, add the fennel, chicory and coconut crumble, then mix in the juice of 1 lime and the chopped jalapeños. In a small pan, warm the coconut oil to soften it with the extra virgin olive oil. Mix in half the curry leaf salt, ½ tbsp jalapeño juice from the jar and the remaining lime juice. Pour over the salad and mix together well. If the coconut oil solidifies in transfer, a flash of heat will bring it back to a runny consistency.
Tip onto a platter scattered with a third of the red onions, 2 large jalapeño slices and the fennel fronds to garnish, then sprinkle some more curry leaf salt on top and serve. Keep the extra pickled red onions and jalapeño slices handy. This is great with grilled white fish, tofu and paneer, or as a main with warm seeded flatbreads and a glass of something cold and summery.
Cook’s tip
One benefit of coconut oil in the dressing is that it solidifies slightly and keeps the salad crisp for a second meal.
Nutritional
Typical values per serving when made using specific products in recipe
Energy | 888kJ/ 215kcals |
|---|---|
Fat | 18.8g |
Saturated Fat | 12g |
Carbohydrates | 6.7g |
Sugars | 4.6g |
Fibre | 5.3g |
Protein | 2.1g |
Salt | 2.2g |