Nilson Tales Guimarães
Camilla Marcus, chef and cookbook author, has shared a salad recipe designed for outdoor dining. The dish, called The Whole Stalk or Bulb Salad, uses celery or fennel as a base and is built to stay crisp even after being dressed.
The recipe appears in Marcus’s cookbook. It calls for thinly sliced celery or fennel, dates, blue cheese, smoked almonds, preserved lemon, and brine from pickled chilies. The vegetables are first tossed with vinegar, preserved lemon, and chili brine, then left to sit for a few minutes. After that, avocado oil is added to coat the ingredients and seal in the flavor.
Marcus explained the method in a statement: “The idea is to get that base to absorb the acid and salt, almost like a quick pickle, and then coat the whole salad with oil at the end, trapping the flavor.” The technique keeps the vegetables crunchy while allowing them to take on the dressing.
Ingredients and Assembly
The dish starts with 12 ounces of celery (about four to five stalks) or one fennel bulb. The blue cheese is frozen for at least an hour so it can be shaved thin. The vinegar is boiled, then poured over chopped dates and left to steep for 10 minutes before being strained.
After marinating the vegetables for three to five minutes, they are piled onto a serving plate with toasted smoked almonds and the reserved dates. Shaved blue cheese, celery leaves or fennel fronds, a drizzle of avocado oil, and cracked black pepper finish the dish.
The recipe makes four servings. Marcus suggested it works well for spring and summer menus because it does not wilt in warm weather. She said the salad can be dressed ahead of time and still look vibrant after sitting outside for an afternoon.
