Pork Crouton Salad With Cress And Fennel

Use store bought pork rinds to make a great pork crouton salad with cress, fennel and Cavolo Nero Kale, try this great salad.

The other week I made a pork crouton salad for the very first time. It kind of happened by accident but it turned out to be a great idea. Some store bought pork rinds, some quick heated Italian kale, fennel and cress and you’ve got yourself a great salad appetizer. Let’s do this.

The Salad

So a while back I got my hands on some great salad ingredients. Beets, Italian cavolo nero kale, fresh cress with flowers and plenty of fennel. With so much nice ingredients at hand I decided to start out the evening with a nice salad.

Now salads can be the greatest thing ever but unless you put an effort in it can also be the most boring thing you’ll ever eat.

A good start is to use things that have different textures and flavors. In this salad I use beet leaves, Cavolo Nero kale, fresh fennel and cress. The kale is pan fried in olive oil for a few seconds, the rest is served raw.

Either way it is a great mix but you don’t have to stick with the same. But try to use different types of greens. This helps a lot when making salads delicious. Something soft, something crunchy, something a bit spicy and you’ve got yourself a great mix.

The Pork Croutons

Well that is how my salad started out. I fried the kale, rinsed and picked the other leaves and dressed them with some chopped herbs, vinegar and olive oil. Turned out very boring.

So I had to top the salad with something fun. Luckily I had bought a bag of Danish pork rinds. It’s just salt and deep fried pig skin and it’s delicious.

So I decided to blend some of those with some fennel dill and top the salad with these pork croutons. It turned out great and really took this salad from boring to fun. Try the recipe below, the measurements is a bit unclear since I made this up as I went. So feel free to improvise.

Pork Crouton Salad With Cress And Fennel

Serves 4 as an appetizer

4-6 handfuls of rinsed roughly chopped salad leaves, use dill, fennel dill, mangold, spinach, arugula, cress, most things work great as long as you make sure the flavors are different.

4-6 leaves of Italian cavolo nero kale, or regular kale
1 handful pork rinds (store bought deep fried)
⅓ handful of fennel dill
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp white wine vinegar
2 tbsp chopped mixed herbs, dill, parsley, chives
1 tbsp olive oil (for frying)
salt, pepper

This is as easy as it sounds. In a blender mix the pork rinds with the fennel dill into a crisp. Set aside.

Heat a frying pan with the olive oil and quickly fry the kale for about ten seconds. You just want the kale to soften a little bit and be warm when you’re serving the salad. Once fried set aside.

Put all ingredients besides the croutons into a big bowl and make sure each leaf gets some dressing. Carefully plate the salad on four different plates. Add 1-2 tablespoons of pork croutons on top, serve. Good luck.