Fennel - how I will miss you in summer!

I have a confession to make. I didnt know what a fennel looked like until 2 years ago! How i had never managed to eat this amazing vegetable for so long I do not know! I fell in love one Saturday morning wandering around the Richmond markets when i noticed a strange white vegetable with green frilly tops.

'Whats that?' ,I asked Nathan

'I dont know', said Nath

Enter old italian guy who laughs at us and tells us it is fennel. What do you do with it we ask. Salads, roast, pasta, everything! Feeling a bit silly we take it home, consult a few recipe books and enter into the wonderful world that is fennel. Since then we have used it salads, and pastas (especially combined with chorizo, mmmmm!) but by far our favourite recipe so far is the fennel bake which is especially lovely coupled with fish. And best of all, it is ridiculuously easy. I can't remember where I got this recipe for the bake from so sorry to the author...

Fennel Bake

2 bulbs of fennel

1 tin of tomatoes

parsley

1 large onion

3 gloves garlic

Parmasen cheese

bread crumbs

Cut the fennel into thin slices and fry in olive oil with the onion and garlic until soft. Add the tinned tomotoes, season and let simmer for around 10 minutes. Meanwhile grease a baking tray and preheat the oven to 200C. Add the fennel mixture to the tray with some chopped parsley, top with cheese and then breadcrumbs, and then bake for around 15-20 minutes until golden.

Oven baked red snapper in foil

1 red snapper cleaned and scaled

1 spring onion, slice thinly

garlic, ginger, chilli sliced thinly

fresh corriander

soy sauce

lemon

Wash and dry fish with paper towell. Make 4 cuts on each side of the fish in the fattest part of the flesh. Fill with sliced ginger, garlic, corriander, chilli and spring onion. In the cavity of the fish put in exra herbs as well as thinly sliced lemon slices. Pour soy sauce over fish and season well. Wrap the fish in 2 layers of foil to potect leakage, and bake in a hot oven (200C) for 20 minutes or until cooked.

Sorry about the terrible photos!

We ate these two dishes with steamed rice. The perfect meal!