hiyall said:
JB, or anyone, can you tell me about fennel bulb? On this cabbage recipe, someone commented they would add a chopped fennel bulb for more veggies, and flavor?
Fennel looks vaguely like a slightly squat, tightly growing bunch of celery. As Pirl says, it tastes of anise; but really a very mild anise or liquorice flavor.
Because it is mild it is very good shaved and eaten raw as suggested. Likewise it can be quite good grilled so that the flame carmelizes and enhances its sweetness. The french like it braised and then gratineed. It is often served as an accompaniment to fish and sometimes pork. I also like it with seared scallops; having seared the scallops I deglaze the pan with a bit of Pernod (also anise) letting it burn off and then toss finely shaved fennel in the pan to lightly wilt. I serve the 'warm fennel salad' as a base to the scallops. I tend to prepare scallops as a first course as I find them so rich that I like a single, perfectly seared dayboat scallop and its garnish as the entire course.
I am on a scallop tangent suddenly. One of the best dishes I ever 'created' was a scallop starter for a fancy party. I made very strong bacon stock and then braised rutabagas in it, chilled them in the stock overnight and then cut them into roughly 2" rounds. Just before service these were seared in the bacon fat collected from the bacon stock. I also made an unctuously creamy fresh corn polenta which was finished with mascarpone rather than butter. The dish was a single seared scallop flambeed with Pernod which was set atop the disc of rutabaga which itself was set on a dollop of the polenta. Sweet corn and smoky bacon are great with the sea-sweet of a very fresh scallop. One of my two kitchen assistants at that dinner took pictures; I'm usually too busy to do so - I will have to look and see if I can find any...
End of diversion.
I would not add it to the cabbage dish - I think its flavor would be lost and would add nothing to the dish.
...Returned and am editing to add the following - and a couple of pics...
Oh, now I am getting testy remembering something...the morning of that dinner I was prepping lots of the finishing bits that can be done in advance. I had a handyman (he went by 'Cowboy') that I used often in the house doing something with lighting on the deck. Anyway, I was making garnishes and prepping things. Among them I had made ten perfect candied bacon tuiles to garnish the scallops - checked off the list. I was in the wine cellar grabbing bottles when Cowboy finished and I heard him looking for me, he wanted to be paid. I hauled my bottles upstairs and paid him, off he went.
Later I discovered I had only eight bacon tuiles. None of the ten guests got a bacon garnish as I could not make time to recreate them. Later, when I asked, Cowboy said "They smelled so good and I didn't think you'd mind, I only ate a couple of them." I don't often lose my temper...
Sorry for the long winded wander down memory lane... Sunny garden is really calling now.
