37: A salad of fennel, winter leaves and Parmesan, p7, and 38: Fennel, watercress and pear salad, p303

Another bunch of wretched fennel recipes out of the way... and a surprise! These weren't too bad at all - pretty good in fact!

The first one, with croutons and Parmesan, was the best - the dressing was delicious, even though I forgot to add the lemon juice :( and T really liked it, even though it was quite Parmesany - success! I've never made, or liked, croutons before but these were very quick, I used only the tiniest bit of oil so they were essentially just toasted rather than fried, and they really added something. The combination of the leaves and crunchy (very thinly chopped) fennel, crispy bread, and creamy dressing was lovely. And it used the tarragon vinegar! A whole tbsp of it!

Like.

Second salad was good, but not as good as the first one. Couldn't find any pears (it is February...) so used Nigel's suggested substitute of a sharp apple, and again, it balanced out the aniseedy flavour of the fennel really well. The dressing wasn't as good as the first salad, but was super simple, just lime juice and olive oil.

Went well with the pork chops in the next post...