Florence Fennel - Fennel Bulb

My wife Izumi likes me to try all kinds of weird and wonderful things in the garden. She kept asking me to grow Fennel so I did. Our first crop of fennel grew fine but it wasn't the variety she wanted – she wanted the Bulb kind known as Florence Fennel. We needed to grow it from seed because the nurseries didn't sell seedlings of such an unusual plant. It's popular with the asians and is usually sold in Chinese vegetable shops. But it's quite expensive – that's why we tried growing our own.

So here it is:

 

Technically although it's often referred to as Fennel bulb it's not actually a bulb — it just looks like one, hence the name. The cats seems to love rubbing themselves against the foliage which smells sweet like aniseed.

We grew it over the winter months and harvested it in September.

Here's what Izumi did with it:

She sliced up a couple of oranges off the tree...

 Then mixed it in with the fennel (the bulb part) which was also sliced up...

 Then she added a few pitted olives...

I think she added some salt and pepper and some of Paul Newman's salad dressing and that's about it. It was very fresh and full of interesting flavours. It goes well with just about any kind of meat dish you can think of including fish, steak, sausages... whatever you like really.