Just a little information I thought I'd share....

The other week I was making roast lamb and roast chicken for Sunday dinner and wanted to make it a little special. To spice up the chicken I added a few cloves of garlic, a vegetable stock cube and about 1-2 tsp of ground fennel seeds !. This was cooked in and on the chicken while roasting and then the gravy made from the juices in the roasting pan. I then added a little more fresh fennel and a good splash of white wine... made a very tasty and different gravy.

(the lamb?.. well that was a whole different story involving browning, slow boiling, re-roasting and a generous splash of port)...

Both sound tasty. Though I don't eat the meat anymore, I still remember the taste!

Mamta

fennel is supposed to work well with fish if you eat that (not tried it myself as I love fish simply steamed, but I may spice it up one day)

oh by the way, if anyone likes a certain high street chicken chain's gravy you might want to give the recipe above a try !

Hi Steven,

Fresh fennel grows wild back in our home in the South of France, but we've oddly not used it with fish.

I take your point about simple grilling of fish (I agree), but we have a lovely Madhur Jaffrey fish dish with a sauce which has fennel SEEDS in it: it's yummy!

Phil

Hello Phil

If you have fennel growing wild around your place, experiment with it. It is delicious added to many dry (without gravy) vegetable dishes, specially stuffed vegetables. It is also good in some sweets, like rice pudding, because of it's sweet flavour. If you soak/boil it in water, the water is very good for indigestion, specially flatulence, created by eating beans/lentils. Some whole lentils, like black Gram (Urad/Urid), are traditionally cooked in Northern India with fennel seeds added to it. It also can be chewed as a mouth freshener and digestive aid.

Mamta