'Prawn, fennel & feta salad' ticks all the boxes to enable you to fit in your jeans.



Easy, tasty, healthy prawns with feta

Salads have blossomed into a whole new genre in the last few years.  They can be as simple as a bowl of crisp greens, served as a side dish or like this salad, can come into their own to be satisfying enough to serve for lunch with some crunchy bread, or as a starter. 


With the wonderful texture, flavour and colour of fresh, raw vegetables, 'Prawn & Feta Salad' is high in protein, low in fat and carbohydrate, with the added advantage of a low GI estimate, so it ticks all the 'fit in your jeans' boxes. 
Clara

 Prawn, fennel and feta salad
Serves 4 as a lunch salad
3 lebanese cucumbers, peeled, shaved into ribbons with a vegetable peeler
I baby fennel bulb, shaved
¼ cup fennel sprigs (the green ferny tops are full of flavour)
24   large cooked prawns, peeled, deveined, tails intact (choices here to buy or cook your own green prawns, which is what I do since it only takes a minute.)
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
2 tsp honey
small clove garlic, crushed
Sea salt and cracked pepper, to season
200g / 7oz  Bulgarian or Danish feta, or goats cheese, drained, crumbled

Divide cucumber, shaved fennel and fennel sprigs between 4 plates. Top each
salad with 6 prawns.
To make dressing, whisk or shake  to combine the oil, vinegar, honey and seasoning.  Drizzle over salad.
Sprinkle feta over each salad and serve.
 


Fennel - versatile and tasty

 Fennel has a delicious sweet aniseed flavour and is great served raw in salads, although it may be sauteed, stewed, braised, grilled.  It features prominently in Mediterranean cuisine, where bulbs and fronds are used, in side dishes, salads, pastas, and vegetable dishes.   The lovely feathery leaves are delicately flavored and similar in shape to those of dill.
The best way to slice it,  is to do so vertically through the bulb. If your recipe requires chunked, diced or julienned fennel,  first remove the harder core that resides in the centre before cutting it as finely as you can, or use a mandolin slicer.  

Nutrition and health benefits

The seeds, leaves, and roots of the fennel have been used as medicinal agents as far back as ancient China when it was widely acclaimed for its weight loss, anti-aging, and cosmetic capabilities - and still it today.
Used for congestion, conjunctivitis, stimulating appetite (which is why Italians serve fennel as an appetizer), and increases the flow of breast milk, it has also been used to treat colic in infants. Fennel also serves as prevention against muscle spasms and helps to relieve gas and an upset stomach. Fennel is an antispasmodic, diuretic, expectorant and stimulant.