I have significant affection for fennel. As a chef, I love its versatility, both raw and cooked and as a vegetable and a herb – but my feelings run deeper than that.
Its anise flavour and crisp crunch are hardwired to some very strong childhood recollections of my grandmother Grace’s cooking and its fragrance stirs up more recent memories of gathering branches of wild fennel in the morning to adorn a restaurant that we built one sunny summer in Ibiza. My grandmother and my mother used to slice fennel and drop it into iced water for a snack, or to settle the stomach after a meal. Us kids would dive into that bowl, depleting it well before dinner hit the table, and then fight over who got to drink the licorice-scented icy water. I’ve passed that tradition on to my girls, too – not the fighting so much – and I put chunky fennel wedges in their winter lunchboxes.
Over the years I’ve gathered the flowering stems – I love the blurred fuzz of fronds and spray of vibrant yellow flowers at the top of spindly stalks – to detail the dining areas of my restaurants. I have often thought this image would be the perfect tattoo, should that time ever come.
After picking fennel, I harvest the vibrant pollen to scatter over a crudo of fish or shellfish, or on a pasta or grilled fish. Common or wild fennel broadcasts its seeds on the wind and it happily grows almost anywhere they settle. You’ll often see it growing by railway lines, on riverbanks, or on a block of long-vacant land. Before picking this wild offering, check with your council to make sure it hasn’t been sprayed.
You’re likely to encounter commercial fennel – most noticeably as the swollen, ribbed white bulb at the market, ideally with its beautiful plume of feathery fronds intact. Choose plump round bulbs and stay away from the stringy developments later in the season.
The fact that fennel can be eaten raw or cooked makes it a very versatile necessity in my kitchen at this time of year. Its sweet anise flavour, fresh or braised, brings a wonderful nuance to so many dishes. It adds a flavoursome, crunchy dimension to salads, so why not celebrate both in a little starter dish.
This sweet marmalade and lightly dressed shaved fennel are just fantastic with the fresh milkiness of the burrata. The textural crunch and flavour from the pine nuts and the zesty, nutty coriander seeds are pleasing and unexpected. Serve with grilled or lightly charred bread to add a smoky char note to the dish.
As you can guess, I have a true love of the humble cost-effective vegetable. Fennel is a nimble and brilliant ingredient and should be front and centre of more dishes. But let’s not celebrate it too much, as we don’t want the price to skyrocket.
