A miscellany of fennel

Fennel has taken over my kitchen for the past month. When I learnt that fennel was the next vegetable for Beet ‘n Squash YOU! I was quietly pleased. I like fennel. Trouble is, other than chopping it up and tossing it into a salad, I never know what to do with it. Convinced that anything can be forced into a cupcake, I created a tray of cakes that were an almost unnatural shade of snot green. Even the birds turned their beaks up at them. Something about the cupcake experience made me reluctant to even attempt cookies. Which did rather leave me in a pickle. Or a fennel.



My next attempts focused around another all-English pudding: crumble. Not satisfied with fennel, I threw in some shallots. And made the crumble with blue cheese. The whole thing was plated up with a warm salad of celery, pancetta and a sprinkle of walnuts and blue cheese – and served with a dollop of creme fraiche. It was delicious. I had seconds. The trouble with this dish was that the subtle flavour of the fennel was overpowered by the wonderful combination of shallots and blue cheese. I have since made this dish again, without the fennel, and it tasted the same.



I scratched my head for some time after the crumble. Then, when making a batch of Christmas cookies with Speculaas spice, I remembered how well anise and ginger went together. And so I set about putting together a fragrant fennel and ginger soup. I’m sure there are many such recipes – there is certainly one in one of my old weight watchers books. That recipe again bulked out the fennel with shallots. I do think these flavours go together really well, but the shallots have such a potent flavour that I reduced the quantity of them; and increased the fennel. So the resulting soup was fragrant and light, and just about related to the WW original. So still pretty much guilt free, right? The soup was delicious and I happily had it for lunch two days in a row.



Inspired by my success with the gingery soup, and desperate for a fennel desert, I made fennel and lemongrass in gingerbeer jelly. It looked amazing in shot glasses ready to set. It set after being left in the fridge overnight. Or so I thought. Fresh ginger has an enzyme which prevents gelatin from setting. I tried to sneak round it by using gingerbeer but it seems that either fennel or lemongrass has that same enzyme. The plain gingerbeer jelly was delicious and set perfectly. The gingerbeer jelly with lemongrass was also really tasty – but didn’t hold its shape well out of the glass. Still, this is something I can see myself messing around with in the future as it tasted amazing. But the jelly with fennel in? Didn’t set (it rather looked like frogspawn on the plate). Didn’t taste right either. (I didn’t even offer this one to the birds!) With the leftover jelly, I made a fennel and orange trifle. I haven’t even dared to try it.

So soup it is, then!



Ingredients for fragrant ginger and fennel soup (serves 4, recipe adapted from WW).

Fennel, one and a half heads
Shallots (one head of fennel weighed 300g and I used the same amount of shallots)
Garlic, one clove
Fresh ginger, about an inch
Fresh vegetable stock, one litre
Finely grated zest of one lemon
Handful of roughly chopped coriander
Salt and pepper





(1) Finely chop the shallots and fennel and cook on a low to medium heat in a drizzle of olive oil with the garlic (crushed) until softened, but not browned.

(2) Add the ginger (finely chopped), lemon zest, coriander and stock. Stir well and allow to simmer (covered) for about half an hour.

(3) Transfer to blender, and blend until smooth.

(4) Return to saucepan and bring to the boil. Season and serve immediately, garnished with natural yoghurt and fennel fronds.