Googling for Dinner: Shaved Fennel Salad with Criminis and Parmesan

Shaved Fennel Salad with Criminis and Parmesan

There are many reasons to love the Internet:

• Surfing Petfinder.com for a puppy that I should definitely not get
• Online shopping at JCrew.com for shoes I definitely don’t need
• Reading the NYTimes about current events I absolutely ought to know more about

But without fail…another reason for loving the good ‘ol World Wide Web is that after a weekend of a tad too much partying (thinking dancing until 3a with my lovely friend and neighbor, Ila) and not enough productivity I’m able to look in my fridge, see that for dinner we’ve got an old fennel bulb, some crimini mushrooms, and a hunk of Parmesan and immediately be offered a plethora of dining ideas.

I ended up going with the Shaved Fennel Salad from the oh-so-lovely Orangette blog by Seattle’s Molly Wizenberg. If you don’t read her…you definitely should. Just don’t compare me to her…that would be too sad.

This salad is surprisingly good and a wonderful compliment to the other things I had in my fridge and cupboard; grilled chicken breast marinated in a coconut dressing and toasted quinoa.

Make it on a Monday night when you’re wishing you had a weekend to recover from your weekend.

Shaved Fennel Salad with Criminis and Parmesan
Adapted from Orangette
Serves two with just enough left over for lunch

1 medium fennel bulb
3 or 4 small crimini mushrooms
2-3 TB good-quality olive oil
2 tsp lemon juice
Coarse sea salt
A hunk of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Prepare the fennel by chopping off its feathery fronds (I always feel sad throwing away such a beautiful part of the vegetable, but c’est la vie). Give it a rinse under cool water and dry completely. Carefully trim off any brown or tired spots, then thinly, thinly slice, preferably with a mandolin. Arrange on a large platter and top with olive oil.
2. Wipe off the mushrooms with a damp paper towel and trim the bottom of the stems. Thinly, thinly slice (probably with a knife this time) and arrange on top of the fennel and top with the lemon juice.
3. Coarsely grate the sea salt over and then coarsely grate the Parmesan. Top with cracked black pepper and enjoy!