Potato Salad with Celery and Fennel

Back in Christmas time me and my lovely fiance, who was in town for 3 weeks only, visited the fish house at Brough Market. He had the famous fish and chips and i had a sea bass with veggies. I had fennel in the veggies and it was assorted with the olive oil. I previously tried using fennel in the salad etc... Although I have been a big fan of distinctive tastes such as rocket, celery, ginger; fennel never really worked out for me. But that fennel at the fish restaurant was absolutely my taste. So last weekend when i went for grocery shopping, I bought some veggies including fennel. And the other day I made an incredible salad and used the boiled fennel. Also I have to tell you i tried the boiled fennel just with extra-virgin olive oil which was absolutely heavenly. I think it goes very well with the fish, you won't be disappointed i promise.

One thing you need to be careful about is not over boil the fennel. You don't want it to loose it's texture, you want it to be a bit crunchy but still boiled.

Salad Ingredients:

• 1 fennel bulb
• 400 grams baby potatoes
• 3 celery leaves
• 2 artichokes (you can take this out if you don't like artichoke)
• 1/3 bunch dill
• 1 red chili
• 2 short spring onions (or chives for taste)

Dressing:

• 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 lemon juice

Boil 1 liter water with 1 tbsp of salt, slice the fennel and soak them to the boiling water for 3-5 minutes. Drain the fennel with the help of a large spoon set them aside. Using the same boiling water put the baby potatoes with skins on and cleaned artichoke inside the boiling water. Let them boil until tender. Drain and slice the baby potatoes (if they are big) with skin on and dice the artichoke. Chop the celery leaves, and dill roughly.

Squeze the lemon and olive oil in a separate bowl mix them until you obtain a green- yellow looking mixture add sea salt if necessary. Pour the dressing in to the salad and mix it. Then spread finely chopped red chili on top.