Braised Fennel

This is just about one of the easiest things to cook, and is very versatile.  It is delicious cooked very simply without any sauces or butter: this 'skinny' version is low fat, low carb and low cholesterol.  For the less virtuous version, it is scrummy with butter and mayonnaise.

Yesterday, I served it as a vegetable accompaniment to fish, but it also makes for a really good starter.  I put this dish in the oven as soon as I got back from work in the evening, it took about 2 minutes to prep, and then just left it to cook slowly whilst I got on with other things.

Ingredients:
1 bulb of fennel per person
water
pepper

optional extras for the more indulgent version: butter; mayonnaise to serve.

All you need to do is place the florence fennel bulbs in a flat oven dish (flan dish or similar).  Pour in cold water (need not cover the fennel, just a few centimetres deep).   Optional: add a big blob of butter on top, grind some black pepper all over. Cover with foil, making sure the sides are sealed over as much as possible to keep the fennel moist.

Put in oven and cook slowly for about two hours, or until you can stick a sharp knife into the centre of the fennel with relative ease.  It should stay slightly firm but not crunchy or hard.

Serve with just pepper, or also add butter or mayonnaise.

Mayonnaise

Since the chickens are producing 5 or 6 eggs every day, any food made with eggs is firmly on the household menu for the next few months.  Yesterday, with a birthday dinner  party that I was giving, I made 3 types of mayonnaise to go with steamed trout, new potatoes, braised fennel and salad.  I started by making up a basic mayonnaise.   I then divided it into three, keeping one lot plain, then making a caper mayonnaise and a horseradish one.

The taste of your olive oil will make a big impact on the mayo. I used a Spanish extra virgin oil from getoily.com.  It has quite a strong flavour, which I like, and a greenish tinge, which makes for an interesting- coloured mayonnaise!

It is really easy if you have a Kenwood food mixer with beater/whip attachment, although the one golden rule is definitely to be very patient and add the oil in very very slowly.  Here's how I made it:

Roast duck with orange, cloves and herbs

Ingredients:

1 duck, around 2.5 kg in weight, with giblets

2 oranges

a handful of cloves

bay leaves 

rosemary

2 onions

For the gravy: take giblets, place in a pan with one of the onions (peeled and quartered), some bay leaves, rosemary, and a quarter of one orange.  Cover with water, and simmer gently whilst the rest is cooking.

Peel and quarter the other onion, stuff into the duck together with the remainder of the first orange, 4 or 5 cloves, 4 or so bay leaves, and some rosemary. 

Pierce the skin of the duck slightly in several places, only piercing through the fatty layers but not right into the meat (to ensure the juices don't escape).  Put cloves into the pierce sites.  Slice the other orange and place over the top of the duck, together with a few bay leaves and some rosemary.

Back to blogging!

After a cracking start with my blog in the new year, somehow I ran out of steam some weeks ago. This absolutely glorious spring weather, and plenty of activity in the garden, has given me an added incentive to get back to the blog on a regular basis...

Since last writing, the garden has occupied lots of my time, especially since the clocks changed and the evenings are now lighter.

So, I feel a degree of smugness at my planting progress, with early potatoes planted, carrots shoots emerging, onions and garlic now several inches tall, and plenty of seeds planted in the raised beds (loads of beans, peas, lettuce, herbs, and more).

A major worry is the impending hose-pipe ban.