I loved this salad! My family liked it. The salad has a lot of flavor. I made it as a side dish to a quiche. My daughter thought the tastes of the two dishes were too strong for they didn't compliment. I put two small cans of Mandarin oranges in the salad which gave it a nice sweet touch. Thanks for the recipe!
I found the fennel flavor to be a bit too overwhelming. My grocer had both large and small fennel bulbs. I used the larger and if I were to make this again I would use a smaller bulb or just use part of a larger bulb. However the oranges do pair well with the fennel and tone that fennel flavor down. I also used baby spinach instead of arugala. I do not recommend this. Arugala has more flavor than baby spinach. However this does make for a very pretty dish!
This is absolutely delicious and I now make it every week or two! The first time I brought it to work people thought I had gotten it at a fancy deli. They kept saying "Wow it looks beautiful!" They were impressed with the fennel too; a few of them had never seen the bulb before. The flavor was wonderful. I also threw in some dried cranberries which really added to the presentation. If you really wanted to be fancy you could throw some toasted chopped pecans on there. Awesome recipe!
This salad is a very nice change from more traditional lettuce salads. Fennel has a mild anise flavor- don't be afraid to try it!
We thought this was a nice change. Very summery tasting. Next time I would chop the fennell and oranges into smaller bite size pieces. I made it the night before serving next time I would make it two nights before. It was much better today for lunch. Less vinegar taseting.
I used tinned mandarin oranges and I didn't have red wine vinegar (I thought I did when I went to make this) so I substituted cider vinegar. It was the first time I have used fennel and was pleasantly surprised at the mild flavor of it. It was a nice change for a salad and I will probably make this again.
i just made this for thanksgiving and once the family got passed "what is fennel?" they seemed to really like it. The presentation is phenomenal (i added cranberries as someone suggested) and the colors were great. It was a great healthy light salad that I'm sure I'll be making alot this summer.
used butter lettuce instead of arugula.
