I don't want to gender stereotype, but...yeah I do. When a man throws a barbecue, he's usually got the meat covered. If you're looking to bring something, a vegetable side dish will most likely be a welcome addition to the buffet. I love a good meat fest, but I need to cleanse the palate with veggies between the chicken legs and the fatty short ribs.
I attended a lovely Brooklyn garden barbecue this Sunday afternoon, hopefully the first of many. My contribution: a refreshing fennel salad with grapefruit. I borrowed the idea from La Doug and tweaked it a bit. It's a sturdy summer side that preps in 10 minutes, won't wilt too much in the heat, can be dressed before you leave the house, and travels well in a covered mixing bowl. This is a classic example of good ingredients with little adornment. The grassy green of the pistachios picks up the pale dacquiri ice green of the fennel. With the peachy pink grapefruit segments, it's pretty in pastel.
Fennel salad for a Brooklyn garden party
2 fennel bulbs (choose a "female" bulb -- they're bubbly and round, not flat and long, and they're supposedly sweeter)
2 large pink grapefruits
A few handfuls of shelled California pistachios
Olive oil
1/2 lemon
salt and pepper
Parmesan cheese
Shave fennel bulbs thinly with a mandolin into a large bowl, across the grain. (The bulb should sit on the mandolin and get shaved almost til you reach the stems.) Sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Pour a few glugs of good, fruity olive oil into the bowl. Squeeze the juice of half a lemon onto the salad. Toss the fennel in the bowl.
Pare the rind from the grapefruits by lopping off the stem end and the bottom, then cutting around the sides of the grapefruit rind til you just have a skinless grapefruit. Remove the smile-shaped segments of the grapefruit over your bowl of fennel by cutting along the segment skin. Drop the segments on top of the fennel salad.
Using a vegetable peeler, shave a generous amount of parmesan cheese strips on top of the grapefruit til the salad is covered with a single layer of cheese shavings. Sprinkle your pistachios on top. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and take your salad on the subway to go.
Who is Mr. Hotty McHotness in that picture???
That's my friend Brent, visiting from S.F. and taken. Which is too bad because people keep asking about him. But not too bad for my friend who is his gf Julie, who is Hotty McHotness too.
This sounds great. I make the version where it's oranges and fennel (and no pistachios -- how sad), like my mom used to make, but this breathes new life into the salad. I must try it immediately.