Saturday, May 17, 2008

Licorice-Scented Loquat Salad



Events contributing to the birth of this salad include:

(1) It's been way too hot out to make anything other than salad.
(2) There was some fennel in the fridge and Mark Bittman's fennel with olive oil dipping sauce looked like the way to handle it, but we're out of garlic .
(3) The loquat tree outside our kitchen window is finally bearing gorgeous, ripe fruit.

So, the loquats ended up in a salad with two licorice accents: fennel and tarragon. If you live in a loquat-less climate, don't cry. You can substitute apricots or even just leave them out.

2 cups pitted, chopped loquats or apricots
1 bulb fennel, very thinly sliced
1 teaspoon chopped mint
1 teaspoon chopped tarragon
2 tablespoons olive oil
juice of 1/2 a lemon
salt to taste

Mix. Eat.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What IS a loquat, anyway?

I Heart Kale said...

Loquats are a small yellow-orange fruit with a tangy flavor and a few large brown seeds at the center. In the US, they mostly grow in Texas and California, but apricots are so similar that you can totally use those instead. Really, they only appear in this salad because they were outside the kitchen window.

h0n0r said...

Good thing those squirrels didn't eat them all!
http://www.fallenfruit.org/maps.html
This is a fruit map for bits of LA, and has a primer for creating your own. I haven't found one for Berkeley yet - just lots of people who say, "wow!, that's a great idea!" So, perhaps, like the PBL, it's time to make it real.
http://walkingberkeley.wordpress.com/2006/09/12/fruit-tree-follow-up-bananas-in-berkeley-yes/
Also, Berkeley bananas!
- H