Fennel Salad with Oranges and Walnuts
I admit, I've got a thing for fennel at the moment. I just love it, and in addition, it's very healthy. But I promise - particularly to you fennel-haters - that this one will be the last fennel recipe for a while. I've collected a lot of different ideas over the last few weeks and months that I will surprise you with very soon.
We all know about the healthy properties of fennel, and I've already told you a lot about it here Fenchel-Eintrag. A few words on the virtues of oranges: it's nothing new that they are full of vitamin C and strengthen our immune system. And here's some more information about the best-known of all the vitamins and about the orange citrus fruit...
Before I'll talk about what else is hidden in the orange, I'd like to focus a bit on vitamin C. Vitamin C plays many different roles within our body and is a strong and potent antioxidant. The flavonoids in oranges, powerful antioxidants themselves, facilitate vitamin C absorption. Through this process, the vitamin C can prevent oxidative stress and all its negative side effects like accelerated ageing and the formation of cancer. Here's some good news for women: it also supports our metabolism and is great for the skin. Another fact important for both women and men, female and male vegetarians and vegans, is the fact that vitamin C facilitates and improves the absorption of iron from plant sources. It fulfils a number of tasks in our immune system and is widely known as the vitamin that combats colds. Not such a well known fact: it's not actually assured that vitamin C prevents colds, but it certainly lessens their duration and relieves symptoms.
What I especially love about oranges: they help combat fatigue.
And here are the orange's other interesting ingredients: alongside vitamin C, it also contains important electrolytes such as potassium and magnesium. It packs various secondary plant substances that have a hugely positive effect on our health and contains terpenes that act as provitamin A in our bodies and catch all manner of free radicals.
How do you store oranges? I keep them at room temperature, which is said to be ideal. They come from southern countries so they don't like the cold. A cold environment doesn't make them sour, but bitter.
Fennel and Orange Salad
2 people
Ingredients:
- 1 fennel bulb
- 1 red onion
- 2 oranges
- 20-30g walnuts
- 1 TBSP Sonnentor Flower Power (spice mix, optional)
- 2 TBSP high quality olive oil (ideally with lemon flavour) or walnut oil
- 3 TBSP balsamic vinegar
- salt and pepper
Preparation:
- Wash and halve the fennel, cut off the stem and finely chop the stalks. Cut the rest of the bulb into thin slices. Cut and fillet one of the oranges (there are Youtube videos that tell you how to do this). Halve the other orange, juice one half and cut the other half into two pieces and again into slices.
- Peel and very finely slice the onion. Heat up the oil in a dry pan and roast the walnuts. Combine the fennel and the filleted orange wedges with 2/3rds of the onion rings in a bowl.
- Marinate the fennel with the orange juice, olive oil (walnut oil), vinegar, salt, pepper and any spice mixes you like. Arrange the salad on plates and top decoratively with orange wedges (unpeeled) and the remaining onion rings.
