SEA FENNEL salad with carrots & beets
sea fennel, wild carrots’ flowers, helichrysum, thyme, wild fennel
in this variation, the beets are substituted by boiled small white beans
In the Peloponnese, where I come from, it’s most likely to find them on almost every beach, away from residential areas.
You can find them on various beaches in Syros.
Search for them. Pick up their tender shoots, and don’t worry. They will keep on growing new ones.
Usually, people pickle them and pair them with other salads, but I’ll share a recipe with you with sea fennel as the main vegetable.
You will need carrots, boiled or raw beets, olive oil, “petimezi”, and vinegar (apple cider vinegar is best). Petimezi is grape juice that is heated on low heat to make syrup.
The sea fennel’s quantity has to be twice as much as the carrots and beets together.
You will wash them and keep aside 1/5 of them.
Then scald the rest for about 3 minutes in boiling water.
Drain them and cool them with cold water.
Grate the carrots and beetroot on a coarse grater, then mix them with the scalded sea fennel, which you have cut into large pieces.
Cut the fresh ones very finely.
Mix them all and add just enough oil to “shine” the vegetables and just enough vinegar to give the flavors some intensity, rather than the vinegar being the dominant flavor.
Add just a bit of petimezi to balance the flavors and a pinch of salt, because the sea fennel is salty, and you are ready to enjoy your salad.
