A nice vegetable side dish (fennel, peas and lettuce)

Serves 1 or 2

1 small bulb fennel

1/2 small iceberg lettuce

1 glass frozen peas

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp butter

Salt and pepper

Trim, wash, quarter, de-core and thinly slice (~2-3 mm) the fennel.

Do a similar thing to the lettuce slicing into 1cm widths.

Add all ingredients to a frying pan with a lid along with 1/2 small glass of water.

Bring rapidly up to a simmer.  Cook with lid on for circa 5 minutes.  Remove lid.  

Stir well then boil and stir uncovered until liquid is reduced and absorbed.

Braised fennel

Can be served cold as part of a lunch or as a side dish.

Braised fennel

1 head of fennel, washed, dark bits timmed off, fronds trimmed off and reserved, quartered lengthwise, root attachment cut off at an angle so the parts stay together
2 tbsp olive oil or rapeseed oil
1 clove garlic, peeled and sliced
Juice 1/2 lemon
1 tsp coriander or fennel seeds
1 tbsp finely chopped parsley
Salt, pepper and water

The ideal implement is a wide, heavy frying pan with a lid that can also go inside an oven.

Gently fry the fennel peices in the oil until lightly browned on most surfaces.

Add the garlic and fennel or coriander seeds and stir for 30 seconds.

Add the lemon juice and water to almost cover the fennel - if it's not sitting flat in one layer, you might not want to add enough to cover it, and might prefer to just turn it more regularly while cooking.  Shake the pan and bring to a simmer.  Season with salt.

Cook for around 40 mins either on a low heat, or in a low oven, covered, turning the fennel halfway through.  The fennel should be translucent and cooked but bear in mind, if you are serving cold, that it will continue to cook as it cools.

Remove the lid and simmer (ie. reduce) the liquid until only a small amount remains.  Personally I quite like some liquid with my fennel.

If serving cold, allow to cool now in a dish, and add parsley, chopped fennel fronds, black pepper and a little extra oil before chilling.  If serving warm add there and then.

Sea bass with fennel, celery and beurre blanc

Serves 4

The fish:
4 fillets of scaled sea bass, pin bones removed
Salt
Any cheap oil to fry (sunflower/vegetable)

The vegetables:
2 bulbs fennel, with fronds attached
3 sticks celery, with leaves attached
3 cloves garlic, sliced
1 tsp fennel seeds, slightly crushed
Juice 1/2 lemon
~4tbsp extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper

The sauce:
3 tbsp. very finely chopped shallot
1 glass white wine
3 tbsp. white wine vinegar
1 bay leaf
1 sprig thyme
175g butter, cold, diced

Start with the vegetables.  Remove the fronds from the fennel.  Quarter them lengthways, remove the cores and slice thickly.  Likewise remove the leaves from the celery.  Peel the outer fibres from the celery with a vegetable peeler.  Cut each stick into 2 inch lengths, then slice each length into 3 or 4 rectangular batons.  Chop both sets of leaves.

Place all the ingredients except the leaves in a wide sauté pan with a lid and a glass of water.  Cover over a medium heat for 10 minutes to steam the vegetables a little.  Remove the lid and sauté over a low heat, stirring regularly for around another 20 minutes until the vegetables are softened and gilded slightly and the liquid has reduced to a glaze.  Just before serving toss the vegetables in their leaf herbs.

Two pan types are suitable for shallow frying fish fillets, to my knowledge.  Firstly, a heavy cast iron one whose base would be blackened by long service.  Secondly, any pan with a non-stick base.  If this base is also heavy then so much the better, and low sides to either pan will allow you to wedge an implement under a fillet more easily.  The process is as follows:

• Heat around 4mm of oil in the pan until hot (but not smoking hot... you will get the hang of it)
• Dry the fillets and season on both sides
• Lay the fillets in the pan, skin side down, without overlapping or crowding
• For the first 5 seconds of the fish being in the pan, push the fillet down with your fingers so the skin is flat against the base, and try to eliminate any bubbles, as the skin wrinkles up.  Actually in the picture below you can see I haven't done this as well as possible!
• Do not touch it for 5 minutes.  After around 5 minutes you should see the edges of the skin have browned a little, and the opaque, cooked flesh should have grown in from the edges and up from the base leaving a small translucent island on top.
• Wedge under the thinnest flat implement you have very carefully, to unstick the skin if needs be, then flip the fillet over using both hands.
• It will need only another 5 seconds then can either rest in the pan off the heat or can be removed to the plate at this point.
• Season again.  It will be very hot.

Beurre blanc:

Place all the ingredients apart from the butter in the pan.  Reduce rapidly until it is a mush of clear shallots and a tiny amount of liquid.  Remove the bay leaf and thyme then whisk in the butter 1/3 at a time over a medium to high heat.  The butter must be added from cold and you must whisk constantly.  Taste for length of flavour and balance of acidity and saltiness.  It will thicken slightly as it cools which is fine.

Serve with new potatoes.

Cod baked with fennel, tomatoes and potatoes

Serves 1 but easily scaled up.  You'll need a big tray even for 2 people.

1 portion cod, skin on, bones pulled out
1 large tomato, stem base cut out and quartered
3 cooked new potatoes, halved lengthways
1/2 bulb fennel, base trimmed but leaving enough to keep parts together, halved again into quarters
3 cloves of garlic, unpeeled but lightly crushed
2 tbsp olive oil
2 bay leaves
1 tsp fennel seeds, lightly crushed
2 tbsp chopped parsley
Salt and pepper

Blanch the fennel for 3 minutes in salted water until tender but still firm.  Drain and leave in the colander briefly for the steam to escape.

Place everything except the parsley in a tray.  Mix around and season generously.  Leave the fish skin side up as it will crisp nicely during cooking.

Bake for 40 minutes at 175C.  At 15 minute intervals use a spoon to spoon the oil and juices over everything.

Remove from oven and leave to cool for a few minutes.  Then throw in the parsley and mix around again to coat the contents with the juices and parsley, being careful not to crush the fish or tomatoes too badly.

No tomato this time