Fennel is a wonderful and very underappreciated vegetable. It has a beautiful sweetness and subtle licorce flavour. All parts of the plant can be used in cooking. Fennel seed is commonly used in Indian and Chinese cooking (it is one of the spices in Chinese five spice), and an elegant pesto can be made from the fronds. It is crunchy and refreshing sliced very thinly on a mandolin and used in summer salads.
All parts of the fennel plant have been used throughout history as medicine. Recently I found a reference to fennel in the great German mystic Hildegard’s work – she recommended eating fennel bulb regularly for stimulating the digestion. In the Chinese tradition, fennel seed tea is a common home-cure for colicky babies.
Baked Fennel with Black Olive Tapenade
This recipe for baked fennel enhances all the beautiful sweetness of the fennel bulb by pairing it with orange juice and roasting it slowly to encourage the natural sugars to develop.
The tapenade recipe makes way than you will need, but I promise you won’t be sorry to have extra in the fridge. Tapenade is so versatile and adds excitement to many a dish. It pairs well with steamed buttery potatoes, French and Italian provincial stews, roasted root vegetables, steamed vegetables and veggie-packed frittatas.
Ingredients
5 medium bulbs fennel, quartered
Juice of half an orange
½ cup of chicken or vegetable stock
4 sprigs of thyme
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
Young fennel fronds, to garnish
Tapenade
1 cup pitted kalamata olives
I small clove of garlic, minced
A handful of chopped, flatleaf parsley
2 sprigs of thyme
4 anchovies in olive oil or 1 tbsp capers packed in salt
A squeeze of lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper
3 tbsp olive oil
Method
1. For the baked fennel, preheat the oven to 190⁰C. Place all the ingredients into a roasting pan and cover with foil. Bake for about 30 mins, or until the fennel has softened. At this point, remove the foil and bake until the juices have reduced to a sticky glaze, and the fennel pieces have taken on some colour.
2. While the fennel is baking, make the tapenade. Place all the ingredients except the olive oil into a small food processor and blitz until smooth. Add olive oil by the tablespoon with the motor running. Taste for seasoning – you may not need any salt because the olives anchovies and capers are all very salty.
3. To serve, dollop teaspoons of tapenade over fennel and scatter with fennel fronds.
Variations
Baked fish and fennel: Substitute lemon juice for the orange juice. Bake a whole snapper or trout on top of the fennel.
Rack of Lamb: Seal a well-seasoned rack of lamb in a frying pan while the fennel is baking. When you remove the foil, add the lamb, baste it with the sugary juices and roast for roughly 20 mins more for perfectly pink lamb.
Nicoise-inspired salad: Toss some steamed green beans, roasted tomatoes, boiled egg, a can of tuna, chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon juice with some tapenade to make a hearty, warm salad.