Bulb Fennel

[burnie]

I have grown a small quantity for a trial, I'll try some raw, as a salad, but anyone have a nice low calorie recipe for cooking it?

[ecudc]

You can lightly roast it to go with fish or chicken. Spray it with Olive oil if you need something a bit lighter.

Braise it with some tarragon white wine and olive oil.

If you have enough of it you can purée it, good with scallops as a starter.

Definitely not lo cal but how about fenel dauphinouise Fennel Dauphinoise | BBC Good Food

[ecudc]

Just had something a bit like this in one of the "Pig" restaurants tonight:

Quick Pickled Fennel | French Revolution

It was served with a few coriander leaves and bbq'd (or probably in their case wood fired ovened) cuttlefish and what I think might have been a tiny bit of taramasalata...it was a sort of a smokey mayonnaise....I'm going to try it at home.

[ConfusedRhubarb]

Earlier this year I made a yummy tomato and fennel pasta sauce - leftovers with green beans was surprisingly tasty too. It was relatively lo-cal and went something like this Tomato & Fennel Pasta Sauce - Mill City Farmers Market or this Tomato Fennel Sauce
but I can't honestly recommend the exact recipes as I can't remember where I got the idea. I'm terrible at sticking to recipes so probably read two or three and then improvised on the theme...

[ConfusedRhubarb]

Bookmarked! That pickled fennel could be very more-ish. I've got a patch that'll be ready in a month or two and will definitely use this. I've never tried roasting it either. Thanks

[burnie]

The roasted sounds nice, I don't eat butter, which was how it was cooked the last time I had some in a restaurant, love a barbeque, if the weather picks up as promised I'll try that along with the Sweetorn.

[burnie]

Another question, do you only eat the bulb and fronds, the stem looks quite nice and juicy too?

[ecudc]

Normally just the bulbs as it is sweeter and less stringy. You can use the tops to flavour stock or stews though.

[sparrow100]

As a low calorie recipe, braise it in vegetable stock over a low heat for about 20 minutes. You can use any part of the bulb for this - the stalks take slightly longer, the fronds no time at all. Goes really well with fish or gammon. The stems are lovely - Him Indoors eats them like aniseed sweets. In Italy you often get bits of fennel roughly chopped in big chunks set on the table with a bowl of good salt as a side dish.