Raw Red Cabbage Salad

It's Halloween weekend. Friday night we were invited to a dinner party by my Dutch friend. Being a foreigner myself, I've gotten to know a lot of other foreigners. I was put in charge of a starter. I knew I was going to do a pumpkin and goat cheese dish but I wanted to do something else as well. So I made a red cabbage salad with fennel, dried cranberries, a red pepper, and mustard vinaigrette. Originally there was going to be edamame in the salad, for color, you know? But finding "exotic" foods like edamame in Sweden is usually pretty hit and miss. This time it was a miss.

This is a picture of me with my husband acting as antlers. He's creative sometimes. Our friends, the Dutch girl and her sambo (the Swedish word for two people who live together but are not married) fed us extremely well and never allowed for an empty glass. Also at the party was my South African friend, his Swedish sambo, and their friend also from South Africa- who (get this!) lives in England now and is Jamie Olivier's nanny. Yes, that is right. Jamie Olivier's nanny was at dinner and ate my red cabbage salad.
We had a great time at the dinner party. We had so much fun that we didn't once look at our clocks and suddenly it was 2:30 in the morning. We got home around 3:30 and I made early morning spaghetti while we watched The Office. We fell asleep after 4:00.

I started chopping cabbage late Friday afternoon while listening to "The Rocky Horror Picture" show and dancing to the Time Warp. I'm totally fascinated with red cabbage and a bit angry with myself for never using it before. I mean, it's purple! And looks like a brain. It's awesome.

Red Cabbage Salad
1/2 of a large red cabbage, sliced into thin bite sized pieces
1-2 fennel bulb, diced
1 red pepper, seeded and diced
1 package of dried cranberries (about 1/2 cup)

Dressing
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/4 cup of red wine vinegar
2-3 tablespoons of dijon mustard
1 teaspoon of honey
1 teaspoon of sugar
1 teaspoon of chili flakes
1-2 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon of lemon juice

I started with a whole cabbage and peeled off the outer layers. Instead of chopping it in half, I sliced off sections which made it easier to deal with. I then cut each section in small, thin ribbons and cut those into "easy" bite sized pieces. Once you have pieces that are easy to eat put them in large bowl.
Next, chop up your fennel. I had only one bulb but I think two would work even better. You'll want to discard any bad spots on the fennel. You can save the fronds if you have fennel with fronds and put those in the salad as well. Place your diced fennel in the bowl. Since we were eating raw fennel, I didn't use the very middle of the bulb which I always find a bit tough the eat. Same with the cabbage.
Next, dice your red pepper. Toss it in. And then add in your cranberries. Mix everything together well.

For the dressing. I never measure dressings, I go by taste and by what I think would be good. I started by pouring a bit olive oil over the cabbage. You don't need a ton. I then added about the equivalent of 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar. I like really vinegar-ey dressings so I added more in towards the end. I used three huge spoonfuls of dijon mustard. And about about 1 teaspoon of honey. I then mixed it all together in the salad bowl. After that I sprinkled a bit of sugar on top, about 1 teaspoon. (You already get a lot of sweetness from the dried cranberries). And then I added the salt, the lemon juice, and finally the chili flakes. After that, I adjusted the dressing to my taste accordingly. The recipe above is a good base and I know there are better and more professional ways to make a dressing- but remember I was dancing the Time Warp at the time.

After you've dressed your salad keep it covered and in the fridge until ready to serve. It was great several hours later and still great the next day.

Notes
This is one of those salad that so easy to make and you can be really creative with. I mentioned before I wanted to add edamame and I also think raw apples would be good, as well as walnuts or oranges. I love this salad because it's raw, fresh, sweet, sour, and very seasonal. Please make it and dance while you do.