Flavoursome, fabulous fennel

Flavoursome, fabulous, festive fennel

Festive fennel

For summer entertaining, Florence fennel is a deliciously different salad vegetable that is also full of flavour when slowly roasted. Its large white edible bulb has a subtle anise flavour and crisp, crunchy texture when eaten raw. When roasted, the liquorice flavour mellows so that it is more savoury than sweet.

To use

Cut off the tops and peel off the tough outer layers. Thinly slice or shave it into salads, along with leafy greens and other crunchy ingredients (celery, apple, carrots, baby marrow, nuts, cranberries). To roast, slice it into 3cm rounds and oven roast on its own or with other veggies as a side dish for chicken, pork or fish, or folded into pasta.

Try these

Combine fennel shavings with colourful leafy greens, tossed with this delicious cranberry vinaigrette: purée cranberries (plumped up in hot water) with extra-virgin olive oil, balsamic vinegar, white wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, salt, pepper and sugar. Reserve a few cranberries to add when serving.

To accompany a Sunday roast, top sliced fennel with garlic, salt, pepper and 2 teaspoons of orange zest, and roast until it softens and caramelises. Sprinkle with pomegranate pearls when serving.

To grow

In order to develop plump, crisp bulbs, Florence fennel requires rich soil that should still drain well, and more regular watering than garden fennel.

As a stand-out foliage plant

Bronze fennel has fine, feathery bronze leaves and yellow flowers in summer. Use it as a feature plant in flower gardens, especially in mixed borders. It thrives in the company of other sun-loving annuals and perennials like salvias, dahlias, zinnias, cosmos and gaura.

No herb or vegetable garden should be without common fennel, which is a tallgrowing perennial. The feathery leaves and seeds have healing properties and can be used in cooking and baking. An invaluable companion plant, its yellow flowers attract butterflies and beneficial predator insects like hoverflies and wasps, as well as acting as a trap for aphids.

Did you know that there are three distinct types of fennel? The original garden fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is a tough Mediterranean herb, and from it has come Florence fennel (Foeniculum vulgare var. dulce), a superb gourmet vegetable, and bronze fennel (Foeniculum vulgare ‘Purpureum’), a showy foliage plant for gardens and landscapes.

To use

Both common fennel and bronze fennel have anise-flavoured leaves for garnishing salads, pasta and vegetable dishes. A tea made from crushed fennel seeds or leaves acts as a mild appetite suppressant as well as a diuretic. Both help you to lose weight naturally. The dried seed is used as a spicy ingredient for biscuits, bread and cakes, or chewed to sweeten the breath.

To grow

Both fennels grow in full sun, in ordinary garden soil that should drain well. Don’t plant fennel with beans, green peppers and tomatoes or dill, caraway and coriander. Dill and fennel are botanically close, and they tend to cross-pollinate with unsatisfactory results. Bronze fennel