beet fennel salad

When we are traveling, it is often useful to have some reading material to pass the time. Fashion mags are ani's choice, and after a 10 hour transatlantic flight Rome to Chicago to save money traveling from Philly in a 767 that had no personal entertainment screens (!) and no working audio in our seats to listen to the audio for the last century style center aisle small ceiling screens that were showing some several hour AA MSNBC canned video over and over again (three times that I noticed, from scenes in a very silent Community with Amy Poehler) nor access to any music channels! We were caught unawares and short of reading material. In addition to inhumanly cramped spacing between seats for somebody with legs like bob...where were we, yes, after deplaning for a 3 hour stopover in a relatively nice airport where we sampled a delicious but somewhat overpriced Rick Bayless hot sandwich he calls a torta (we refused the 4 dollar water bottle and actually found a working water fountain near the gate to cool down from that spicy treat),  we were ready for some new reading material. Fashion mags often have a few recipes in the back, and this one Ani picked out was no exception. A beet fennel gorgonzola walnut salad popped out at us and we made it a few days later. We liked it and will repeat. Is that enough supporting chatter?

ingredients

veggie base

1/2 lb = 8oz recipe ready beets (available nearly everywhere now)

1 head fennel (we used two small ones, shaving it with a cheap V-slicer as thin as possible)

vinaigrette

1 T fresh lemon juice

1 t lemon zest

1 clove garlic, minced

1/2 t Dijon mustard

1/4 t salt

finishers

1/4 c walnut pieces

1 oz gorgonzola dolce, crumbled

1/4 c chopped fresh parsley

freshly ground black pepper to taste (which means taste the result before moving on)

instructions

1. Toast the walnut pieces in a nonstick fry pan briefly without burning them, say 2-3 minutes. Let cool.
2. Cut the fennel in half and pluck out the hard center as best you can. Slice it very thin using whatever slicing device you have, but a cheap V-slicer works well, a mandoline if you have one is more work to clean, the result are nice V-shaped fennel pieces.
3. Chop the beets into roughly 1/2 in cubes.
4. Wisk the vinaigrette ingredients together in a large bowl.
5. Add the rest of the stuff to the large bowl and toss to coat.

notes

1. Shape, September 2013, p.182, fennel-beet salad by Matthew Vohr.
2. We have previously flirted with beet salads.
3. We just learned that beets are not only barbabietola in Italian, but also rapi rossi.
4. Drain the recipe ready beets of that red liquid that invariably is captured with them in the plastic packaging. Still the fennel slices will suck up a nice purple color from the residuals.
5. Illustrations available.