“She stared at the supper set before her: trout wrapped in bacon, salad of turnip greens and red fennel and sweetgrass, pease and onions and hot bread.” -A Clash of Kings
Catelyn’s Salad – turnip greens, fennel, apple, lemongrass, walnuts, and raisins
Thoughts:
Let me start by saying that I don’t especially care for fennel, or any of the flavors on the anise/licorice spectrum. However, when combined with the other ingredients in this salad, especially the apples, even I found it bright and refreshing. The crunch of combined fennel and apple, along with the walnuts, counters the sort of ordinary salad element of the turnip greens. Overall, it’s on the sweeter side, from the fruits and balsamic, and a really nice, unique salad for summer.
Catelyn’s Salad
Cook’s notes: as with all salads, feel free to meddle and mix to suit your tastes. Turnip greens can be difficult to find, so baby spinach is a good substitute.
Ingredients:
- 2 cups turnip greens
- 1/2 cup fennel, julienned
- 1 Tbs. lemongrass, sliced very thinly
- 1/2 apple, julienned
- 1/4 cup golden raisins
- fennel tops
- 1/4 cup walnuts (candied is even better!)
- balsamic for dressing
- edible flowers (optional)
Combine the all ingredients except the dressing and edible flowers, and toss to combine. Drizzle with balsamic, and sprinkle with flowers, if using. Enjoy!
closeup of Catelyn’s Salad
Trout wrapped in bacon sounds delicious, too!
That recipe is in the cookbook! :)
I agree with your fennel comment, I never cared for the taste either. Lord Janos and I enjoyed the fennel taste in your ‘Summer Greens – w/fennel, grapes, cheese’ salad (it’s in my recipe file as ‘Summer Greens with Grapes and Pecans’). I’ve made that salad many times, and since I love lemongrass and golden raisins, it only seems fair that this fennel salad will be another winner. Thanks!
Exactly the same here. I don’t like fennel or anise, but in the summer salad the sweetness of grapes and – most of all – of the jam counters the anise flavour very well.
I guess this one will be great too.
One question though, your cups of turnip greens are packed or not ? I can’t find what it should weight in the metric system. :/
I’d go with a big handful instead of a cup. I got out of the habit of using measurements like “handful” and “smidge” while working on the cookbook, but sometimes it’s really the best term. :)
Ho, thanks ! Yes, “handful” is maybe more universal too. (even if people don’t have the same hand size haha).
The “cup” thing is quite hard to get since the quantity it represent is always different @_@ So to get the right amount of stuff, you have to know if it’s a cup of chopped/sliced/whole/packed stuff.
“Big handful” it is, then ! :D
Hands also make a handy estimate of a “serving” if you’re trying to balance your diet. One USDA serving approximates the size of your closed fist.
Why did you exchange lemongrass for sweetgrass? Sweetgrass is not the same taste as lemongrass, I imagine, though… I think that the idea of eating sweetgrass is very interesting. It has a vanilla smell, and I wonder if it has a vanilla taste.
I swapped lemongrass in for some of the early recipes because I couldn’t find any real-world sweetgrass for sale or for growing anywhere! The substitution just sort of stuck after that. Whereabouts are you, that you have access to it?
I live in Northern Wisconsin. It grows wild on the side of the road here, but also grows wild throughout North America and Europe, I know. I think it grows wild all over the world. I know that you can buy sweetgrass plants on Amazon.com as well as other places online.
Cool beans! I’ll have to check it out, and thanks!
I wonder if ginger or galangal would be a good substitute. While noodling around on the ‘net looking for medival cookery, I searched “sweet grass” in Celtnet’s Spice Guide and got this: http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/spice-entry.php?term=Galingale
Wow, I made this for dinner and was amazed. I have always disliked fennel but this tasted perfect. Thanks for all the work you put into this sight.
I feel the same way about fennel, and was likewise pleasantly surprised! :)
Hey there, I’ve been following this blog for a few years now. Probably late, but it’s worth a shot.
Someone said that the sweetgrass they know has a “vanilla” smell and that’s almost definitely Hierochloe Odorata. Here’s the Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierochloe_odorata
The problem you have with finding some is that most Americans don’t sell sweetgrass AS FOOD. A lot of Native American tribes dry it and burn it for rituals (look up “smudging ritual”), and while Hierochloe odorata can technically be used for food/mundane purposes (I think European sweetgrass is used for flavoring in some countries?), the ceremonial use has become the most well-known aspect in America.
For the past few years, people have been buying sweetgrass as a Native-themed “incense,” which actually isn’t that good because 1) the sudden huge demand by non-Natives is starting to deplete wild stands of sweetgrass, and 2) the fact that so many non-Natives are starting to use sweetgrass for their house/drum-circle/yoga-session is basically the Native American equivalent of everyone suddenly deciding to use church incense as potpourri, because IT SMELLS SO GREAT and has SO MUCH SYMBOLISM. Which leads to a bonus reason, 3) the controversy with non-Natives not just buying a culturally significant plant, but one held to be outright SACRED by many tribes.
I don’t know if GRRM knew about the cultural issues with sweetgrass before he used it as food, but just giving you some ideas as to why it’s so hard to get.