Crunchy Celery and Fennel Salad

27 Replies

We are welcoming some new friends to Emmy Cooks today!  They are fine folks, the discerning type who chose not only to click on a “Freshly Pressed” beet recipe, but also chose to stick around and click on over here, too.  So welcome, new friends!  Here you’ll find a community of cooks and readers and writers and old friends who are always ready to answer questions, share good advice, and trade recipes and tips.  Thank you, old friends and new friends, for being here!

In the spirit of the communal table, here’s a potluck contribution that travels well, so you can take it to parties all summer.  I was inspired to make it, I confess, when I accidentally found three heads of celery in my grocery bag instead of the one I meant to buy (don’t even ask how that happened), but the happy result was a salad so crisp and lemony that I will certainly be making it again.  It joined a host of other outstanding salads in our friends’ back yard this afternoon, where I also discovered the allure of thick slabs of roasted fennel.  Just make sure you save a fennel bulb for the salad.Remember that riotous fiesta of a Summer Crunch Salad with Feta, Mint, and Lime?  The one we had to make over and over because it was so good?  This salad is a refined Italian relation: fennel, Parmesan cheese, lemon.  You could go the distance by substituting pine nuts for the pumpkin seeds.  Either way, the key elements here are the same: celery and fennel for crunch, plenty of Parmesan shavings for salt, and enough lemon juice to make the whole thing sing.Crunchy Celery and Fennel Salad (inspired by Bon Appetit): Thinly slice the stalks from a medium-sized bunch of celery.  Quarter, core, and thinly slice a fennel bulb (or two if they’re small).  Chop a big handful of parsley, and toss all those green things together in a wide dish.  Top with a few good handfuls of toasted pepitas and a shower of Parmesan shavings (I made mine with a vegetable peeler).  Drizzle with olive oil and squeeze half a lemon over the salad, then toss everything together again.  Taste a forkfull; it should be a little salty from the cheese and quite lemony.   Add more cheese or lemon to taste (I ended up using a whole lemon, but it’s always better to start off with less and add more to taste).

27 thoughts on “Crunchy Celery and Fennel Salad”

  2. hannah

    I am such a lame blogger, I had to go figure out what Freshly Pressed actually was – Emmy, how cool!!! Congratulations!! With the sheer number of quality recipes you put up, I’m surprised you’re not on there every week :) And this salad … man, I have come across several mighty salad recipes today, but this one sounds like it might take the cake. Crispy, crunchy, cool, and summer perfect – yum!

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  12. musingmar

    This sounds like such a fresh and refreshing salad. Celery is overlooked as a vegetable in its own right, and this recipe looks like a great way to rectify that!

    Reply ↓
    1. emmycooks Post author

      I agree–celery has such a fresh, clean flavor. I do appreciate the flavor it adds when cooked, but mostly I like it for raw salads like this.

      Reply ↓
    1. emmycooks Post author

      Thank you! I’m always a little puzzled by the Freshly Pressed picks, but it did bring me a couple days of increased traffic and hopefully it will inspire the world to make beet chips! :)

      Reply ↓

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