For my third day of Five Days of Farmer’s Market Meals, I made a smorgasbord (kinda) in order to get a better handle on my overflowing crisper drawer.

But I succeeded in using a lot of vegetables, and everything went together pretty nicely in the end! This recipe makes for a delightful little summery meal, and it’s got a couple completely different ingredients in it that really give it a unique flavor.

You likely won’t be able to find the same exact stuff at your market, but I address that in the ingredients list.

The farmer’s market ingredients used in this meal are:

• Agretti
• Culinary celery
• Carrots
• Spinach
• Cucumber
• Scallions
• Wild-caught local haddock from the fish guy

I’d like you to meet two of my new favorite veggies: Agretti and Culinary Celery

     

What is Agretti? Agretti is a Mediterranean water-retaining plant that looks like it should taste like grass but is actually DELICIOUS and can be used in basically anything, including raw in salads, omelets, or sprinkled over pasta (which is how I would have used it had I not just made pasta. Poor planning!)

Culinary Celery will blow your mind if you don’t like celery, but will especially blow your mind if you don’t like parsley. This awesome vegetable creation is a divine marriage of the two that tastes just perfect and doesn’t have that often overwhelming flavor you get with celery and/or parsley.

Agretti can be tough to find unless you know a farmer or market that grows Mediterranean-type veggies, but if you want to try and use something similar, people claim dandelion greens come close-ish.

As for culinary celery, I’ve never seen this before but you might ask around for it. Otherwise, adding a tiny bit of both celery and parsley together would be fine just to get that flavor.

ALSO – NEVER FEAR! This dish is perfect without either of these things! It’s the sesame-ginger sauce that really brings it all together 🙂

What You Need for the Quinoa Salad

• 1 cup quinoa cooked according to package directions
• 1 cup shredded carrot
• 1 cup finely chopped culinary celery
• 1-2 cups roughly chopped agretti
• 1 cup dried cranberries (I used Craisins)
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 cup finely chopped cucumber

What You Need for the Sesame-Ginger Dressing

• 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar (or substitute with honey)
• 2 tablespoons fresh ginger, minced
• 1 teaspoon sesame oil
• pinch red pepper or chili flakes to taste

 

What You Need for the Lemon-Crusted Haddock

• 2 meyer lemons, cut into slices
• 1/4 cup shredded parm
• 1/4 cup panko (or your favorite bread ground up in a food processor)
• Haddock

What You Do

Add the shredded veggies and chopped walnuts and whole cranberries to the quinoa in a large bowl and mix thoroughly. Add sesame dressing, mix well, and set aside in the refrigerator to chill for about an hour, if you can wait. This dish is good both hot and cold.

While the quinoa salad is chilling, sprinkle the haddock with fresh lemon.

Mix together the shredded parm and panko, and gently dip the lemon-doused haddock in to lightly cover the fish, or sprinkle the mixture over the fish if picking it up isn’t really an option.

Bake, grill or pan-fry the haddock until cooked. Serve alongside the quinoa salad with a mixed-green salad on the side if desired! I made a quick salad with leftover agretti, spinach leaves and chopped scallions.