Greek Salad with Fennel Dressing
Inspired by recipes for both the salad and the salad dressing in Jeff Smith’s The Frugal Gourmet, 1984.
Jeff Smith was a PBS culinary icon in the 1980s - ‘90s with a popular cooking show, The Frugal Gourmet which ran from 1984 until 1997, spawning eleven best-selling cookbooks. His career abruptly ended in 1997 when seven former male employees filed a civil lawsuit for sexual abuse as teenagers. Smith, of course, denied the allegations; no criminal charges were ever filed; Smith and his insurers settled the case before it came in front of a judge for an undisclosed amount of money in 1998. But, Smith’s show was cancelled; he published no further cookbooks and died in his sleep six years later at age 65 of heart disease. Sad, really.
But he was a good chef and I still refer to a couple of his earlier cookbooks and have several of his recipes that I’ve adopted in whole or in part as my own within the archives of Kitchen Tapestry. This is one of them.
The first time I have made a Greek Salad, I was amazed at how simple it was and how great it tasted, particularly the dressing, which he called Basic Fennel Dressing. I’ve dropped the word “basic” and dialed back the quantities a little, but still make his dressing to this day.
As for his salad, Jeff got a couple of things wrong. Strangely, he omitted cucumbers from his ingredients. No Greek Salad I have ever seen would not contain cucumbers. Secondly, he used white or yellow onion in his recipe; I think just about every Greek Salad I’ve ever seen has red onion. But he got the fundamentals right: Greek Kalamata Olives, Feta Cheese and Oregano are the defining center stage ingredients for any self-respecting Greek Salad. And Jeff’s innovation of using Cherry Tomatoes was actually innovative and cutting edge for the time.
Greek Salad with Fennel Dressing
Ingredients
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1/2 medium red onion, thinly sliced into rings
- 1 medium green bell pepper, sliced into strips
- 1/2 English cucumber, unpeeled, sliced, then quartered
- 1/2 cup feta cheese, crumbled
- 1/2 cup pitted Kalamata olives (like, Mezzetta)
- 1 tbsp dried oregano
- pinch sea salt
- 7-8 grinds freshly cracked black pepper
- 1/2 cup Kitchen Tapestry's Fennel Dressing
- 1/2 cup Romaine lettuce, hand torn into bite-size pieces
Instructions
- Mix the tomatoes, red onion, bell pepper and cucumber and toss to combine. Chill in a metal mixing bowl until ready to serve.
- Add the feta cheese, Kalamata olives, oregano, salt, pepper and the Fennel Dressing and toss to thoroughly combine.
- Serve on a bed of the torn Romaine lettuce
Salad Dressing Repository - Fennel Dressing
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup white wine vinegar
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1tbsp dried mustard (like, Coleman's)
- 1 tbsp fennel seed, ground
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/8 cup dried parsley
- 1/16 tsp sea salt
- 7-8 grinds freshly cracked black pepper
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
Instructions
- Grind the fennel seed in a spice grinder.
- Place all ingredients except the oils in a mixing bowl and whisk vigorously to combine.
- Add the oils a little at a time while whisking constantly until an emulsion is formed and the oil and vinegar do not separate.
- Allow the dressing to rest a room temperature for an minutes before adding to the salad.
