Fennel and Apple Salad Recipe
Not your usual salad - a recipe with a twist
As South Africans we often tend to make the same old salad to accompany our braai meat: it includes lettuce, tomatoes and cucumber. And if we want to get fancy, we add feta. Or olives. Or feta and olives - shoo, then we have really made it a bougie salad. But what if I told you, it could be so much better? A good salad can be eaten as a meal.
Fennel and Granny Smith Apple Salad with Coriander, Celery Stalks, Toasted Pecan Nuts, Parmesan Cheese and Chicken Strips
In this fennel and apple salad, I used Granny Smith apples. They are a firm fruit with a light green skin and are juicy inside. As Granny Smith apples remain firm when baked, they are a popular apple to use when baking, but they are actually delicious in a salad too. Adding celery stalks and fennel slices provides a different flavour and texture to the usual lettuce and cucumber combination. Adding toasted pecan nuts provides both the crunch and the smokiness, parmesan cheese is a welcome alternative to the same-old feta flavour that we add to our day-to-day salads and with a dill, lemon and olive oil dressing drizzled over this was absolutely mouth wateringly good. To have this salad as a meal, I opted to add chicken strips as well, but if you eat it like a starter or want to keep the dish vegetarian, you don’t have to include it - it’s delicious enough without!
Ingredients to make the Fennel and Apple Salad
50 ml lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
50 ml good quality olive oil
20g coriander
2 fennel bulbs (thinly sliced)
3 celery stalks (thinly sliced)
3 Granny Smith apples (halved, cored, and thinly sliced)
100g pecan nuts (toasted)
100g Parmigiano Reggiano (freshly grated)
Generous amounts of ground black pepper and salt for seasoning
How to make the Fennel and Apple Salad
The chicken strips can be oven-cooked or air-fried.
To bake: Preheat oven to 220 °C. Remove all outer packaging and place chicken strips on a rack on a baking tray. Once the oven has come to the right temperature, place baking tray in the centre of the oven. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until golden brown and heated through. Tum chicken strips halfway through cooking. If frozen, cook for 12 minutes or until golden brown and heated through.
To Air Fry: Preheat airfryer to 200 °C. Remove all outer packaging and place chicken strips inside the air fryer basket and cook for 8 minutes. If frozen, cook for 10 minutes or until golden brown and heated through.Meanwhile, juice fresh lemons using a citrus juicer to get 50ml of fresh lemon juice.
Whisk the lemon juice with 50 ml olive oil and then add salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
Lightly toast the pecan nuts in a dry pan (don’t add any oil).
Grate the parmesan cheese.
Using a mandolin slicer, thinly slice the fennel bulb and celery.
Peel the apples, remove the core and thinly slice with the mandolin.
Add the fennel, apple, and celery to a large bowl.
Gently toss the salad with the dressing.
Right before serving, add the roasted pecan nuts, chicken strips and freshly grated parmesan cheese.
Enjoy! Please tag me on Instagram if you’ve made this recipe, I’d love to see it!
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About Shawn Godfrey
Photo credit: Niki M Photography
Shawn Godfrey is an entrepreneur based in Cape Town, South Africa. After the Covid-19 lockdown saw his business in financial distress, cooking was the creative outlet that helped to keep him sane. To keep track of his recipes, and encourage friends and families to join him, he starts his instagram account The Roasted Dad.
Fast-forward to late 2021 - on a whim Shawn (encouraged by his wife Lianne) enters MasterChef South Africa. It is a crazy time of life: running a 200 people business and struggling to keep it profitable, two small children with a third on the way, and about to move into a new house. But when Shawn gets selected to be one of the 20 contestants participating in the fourth season of MasterChef South Africa, he decides to go all in. Leaving his 7-month-pregnant wife to look after their then three and one-year-old children, he battles it out and comes back home five weeks later with the trophy and a million rand prize money in his pocket.
It all started with an Instagram account, but The Roasted Dad is so much more now. Shawn has stayed his entrepreneurial self and whilst he hosts Private Dinner Parties and Cook-with-Me Demos, does Restaurant Take-Overs, he still runs the lighting company and several other businesses.
On his blog, Shawn shares Restaurant Reviews and Accommodation Reviews, and gives an insight into the wild and wonderful life he leads together with his wife Lianne, and their three children Aiden (6), Olivia (4) and Harvey (2).
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