The Sicilian Winter Salad That's Perfect Year-Round

My daughter Alicia is a fennel fiend. It makes biking in the spring and summer a pit stop-laden journey, as she requires me to pull over next to any and all of the fennel stalks that grow around the bike trails in Seattle to grab a handful of the sweet, anise-flavored fronds and pop them in her mouth to chew as we ride. So when we went to the produce section of the supermarket on our recent trip to Moab and I spied the plump fennel bulbs on the shelf, I knew we were going to grab one even before she eagerly asked for it.

OK, I know I'm going to get grief for suggesting that a simple Italian salad firmly originating in sunny Siciliy's mild winters is great year round. I get it. It's an extremely simple salad, and the simpler the food, the more it relies on the quality of its ingredients. In its purest form, Insalata di Finocchi e Arance is nothing more than shaved fennel and orange slices dressed with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

But here I was, in Moab, in the middle of spring, buying fennel and citrus. Did this market have the very best fennel in the world? The best oranges plucked fresh from their thorny branches in the middle of a mild Sicilian winter?

No. But I was making the dish anyway, and I feel fine about that decision.

Sure, if I was headed to a desert island with but a single burger stand on the beachfront, they'd be serving my favorite burger recipe of all-time. But I'm not headed to a desert island, and there's room in my heart (and stomach) for all kinds of burgers of varying quality.

All that is to say that just because you can't have the ideal version of a dish, doesn't mean that you can't enjoy it, especially if you distract from the main ingredients a bit with a couple of extra bit players.

Here's how we dressed ours.

The Fennel Frontier

To start the salad, I sliced a head of fennel as thinly as I could (a mandoline slicer would have made short work of this, but I didn't have one), then let it soak in a bowl of cold water while I prepared the other ingredients. A cold water soak acts sort of like a good conditioner for sliced vegetables. It helps them to plump and crisp, improving texture and adding body to the salad. I also set aside a few of the whispier, more tender-looking fronds to garnish the salad with.

For the citrus, I used a combination of oranges and ruby red grapefruits (which are sweeter and less bitter than their paler counterparts). I prepped the citrus by cutting off its skin and white pith carefully with a knife (I made sure to put my zest foot forward and shave off some zest with a microplane to add fragrance to the salad). I then divided it pole-to-pole into quarters, then cut those quarters into 1/4-inch slices. You can find an older video I made of a similar process here if you are having trouble visualizing.

There are all kinds of garnishes and extra ingredients commonly added to this salad in Sicily, almost all of them Sicilian pantry staples like Castelvetrano olives, shaved red onion, crushed pistachios, anchovies, or even raisins soaked in citrus juice to plump them up.

For our salad, I couldn't say no to Alicia's favorite nut: the pinenut. I toasted mine very slowly in olive oil over the course of ten minutes or so until they were nutty and fragrant. I drained them and let them cool.

Finally, to serve, I tossed together the fennel and citrus slices (along with some of their juice), dressed them with ample lashings of olive oil. I seasoned the salad with salt and pepper, then transferred it to a serving platter before adding my toasted pine nuts and some fennel fronds.

It's really quite magical how quickly and easily this comes together, and how well those ingredients complement each other. The crunchy, anise-scented flavor of fennel alongside sweet, juicy oranges with just a hint of bitterness. Top if off with toasted nuts to add texture and you've got one of the highest reward-to-effort dishes around, no matter the time of year.

If you serve off-season tomatoes in a caprese salad, on the other hand, and I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger. Just kidding. I won't. No promises about what my kids may do, though.

Sicilian Shaved Fennel and Orange Salad (Insalata di Finocchi e Arance)

Every recipe I publish here is personally tested, tasted, and approved.

What I like about this recipe:

• It's a tried-and-true classic with a wonderful balance of flavors and textures.

• It's easy to make ahead and requires no dressing other than olive oil.

Yield: Serves 4

Active Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

1/4 cup (about 1 ounce; 30g) pinenuts

Extra-Virgin Olive Oil (plenty of it)

1 head of fennel, stalks and core removed, sliced as thinly as possible with a sharp knife or a mandoline, and stored in a bowl of ice-cold water along with a few picked fronds

2 oranges (or an orange and a grapefrui), cut into slices or suprêmes

The zest from 1/4 of the orange

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Steps:

1. Transfer the pinenuts to a skillet just large enough to spread them into a single layer. Add a few tablespoons of oil and cook over medium-low heat, tossing and stirring occasionally until they are deeply browned and nutty all over. Drain the nuts and allow them to cool before proceeding.

2. In a large bowl, combine the fennel , citrus segments and juice, citrus zest, salt, and pepper. Dress with a couple glugs of olive oil and season with salt and pepper.

3. Transfer the salad to a serving plater. Garnish with the toasted pinenuts, some spare fennel fronds, and another generous drizzle of EVOO.