Caramelized fennel and grapefruit salad

This dish is a faster and easier variation of the braised endive and citrus salad. This salad still has the great color and freshness of the citrus, but the fennel has plenty of its own aroma, so doesn’t need the addition of spices.

serves: 4 difficulty: easy prep time: 20 min

Ingredients

4 large bulbs of fennel, and fonds for garnish
2 pink grapefruits
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp lemon juice
2 tbs tarragon, chopped
2 tbs parsley, chopped
2 tbs crushed pistachios

Preparation

Cut off the green stems growing from the bulbs and reserve the fonds for garnish.

Stand up the bulb, and slice it vertically on its narrow side into 1/8 inch slices. The resulting slices should look like the picture below.

Heat a fry pan large enough to hold the sliced fennel. Add the olive oil and when it shimmers, add the fennel. Saute the fennel on medium heat until it caramelizes and turns light brown.

Remove from the heat, transfer to a bowl and let cool.

In the meantime, supreme the grapefruit. First cut off the top and the bottom of the grapefruit.

Then stand up the grapefruit with the cut sides facing up and down. Starting from the top, slice the rind while curving the knife such that it follows the curvature of the grapefruit.

Continue making your way around the grapefruit until you have removed the entire rind.

Then turn the grapefruit on its side, and start making incisions on the inside of the white pulp in order to remove every wedge. Some of the wedges will look near perfect, while others will break no matter how careful you are – but that’s OK. Reserve any grapefruit juice that’s runs out in the process of supreming the fruit.

Add the lemon juice, any reserved grapefruit juice and chopped herbs to the cooled off fennel, and mix well.

To plate, place a handful of fennel in the middle of the plate, and arrange some grapefruit wedges around it and on top of it. Top with the crushed pistachios and fennel fonds.