184: Baked salmon, p234

I didn't have a 'vast piece' of wild salmon, but substituted with a couple of large fillets instead, which I wrapped side by side in foil, pretending they were a larger piece... Easy as pie this one, and we ate it warm (too impatient/hungry to wait for it to be cold) with lashings of homemade mayonnaise, and new potatoes. I wasn't going to buy a whole bottle of Pernod for 'the merest drip' to add to the mayonnaise, so I used vermouth as suggested by Maggie Don, who used the online version of this recipe, with vermouth instead of Pernod. Took c.20-25mins to cook through, but cooking en papillote (well, wrapped in foil at least) meant that the fish stayed moist. A light dish which I should have gotten done much earlier in the year - Spring or Summer, as in the book - rather than on a day of the year when we have a good four inches of snow on the ground!

171: Roast pork sandwiches, p286

Sainsbury's sells pork belly - who knew? I've been popping to the butcher, going into Waitrose, searching for the damned stuff - and then happen to go into a branch of Sainsbury's whilst on a shopping trip, off my normal beaten track, and there it is - not even on the butcher's counter! Hurrah!

It's tasty but not convinced I like it... it seems so wrong to eat so much fat...

Not the easiest recipe, although it seemed simple enough - the herby oniony mix smelt amazing (and tasted pretty good at the end) but didn't want to stick to the meat and, after halving the recipe, 'tucking' it around the meat didn't really work, I had to kind of squish it around one side of the piece of belly. It still started to burn a bit, even with stirring. But hey, how wrong can a roast piece of meat, sliced up and served hot in crusty rolls with a handful of leaves go?

108: Grilled pork steaks with vermouth and fennel, p380

Yummy tasty garlicky rosemary-y marinade this, nice and thick, and made the pork steaks deliciously juicy and tasty after 5-10mins on the griddle pan. Definitely a marinade to use again. Fennel was interesting... as stated previously, I don't really like fennel, but clearly Nigel does... however, softening it in butter and then braising it in vermouth got rid of the overwhelmingly aniseedy taste I don't like, and gave it a lovely soft taste instead, but at the same time retaining quite a lot of crunch and texture. Not bad at all :)

93: A soup of roasted summer vegetables, p220

This looked little it might be a bit of a meh soup, as Nigel says getting 'rid of a whole heap of vegetables', but roasting the veggies in the oven first, like the tomato soup last week, really made a spectacular difference to the depth of flavour - and surprisingly, the fennel, which I don't really like, added a further depth, and the broth with the soup is almost meaty it's so rich. There's nothing about blending the soup at all in the recipe, so I slightly mashed the roasted tomatoes, which had collapsed in the roasting tray but still stayed in two large tomatoey lumps. Yum. And a good way to use up that cabbage of guilt...

92: Mozzarella with grilled fennel, p261

Oooh, an interesting one... I'd never pick this - don't really like fennel, don't hugely like black olives... But did quite like this! Wasn't quite sure how to slice the fennel into '£1-coin thick slices' so it wouldn't fall apart in the griddle pan but it just about worked. I probably could have griddled it for longer, as it was still a little crunchy, but the combination with the creamy (couldn't-find-buffalo-anywhere) mozzarrella and sweet olives was really rather nice. A surprise success!

74: Roast pork with lemon and potatoes, p171

Not a radical one this, pretty much what it says on the tin - pork, with chunks of lemon and halved new potatoes around the meat, roasted. Unusual addition was fennel seeds added to the lemon and potatoes. Not entirely sure I liked it, fennel has an aniseedy taste which I don't really like, and, although there was only a small amount included, I think pork needs some strong flavours added to it to cut through the sweet, fattiness of the meat, and this wasn't enough. So it was just a little bit meh. The potatoes roasted up nicely though!

37: A salad of fennel, winter leaves and Parmesan, p7, and 38: Fennel, watercress and pear salad, p303

Another bunch of wretched fennel recipes out of the way... and a surprise! These weren't too bad at all - pretty good in fact!

The first one, with croutons and Parmesan, was the best - the dressing was delicious, even though I forgot to add the lemon juice :( and T really liked it, even though it was quite Parmesany - success! I've never made, or liked, croutons before but these were very quick, I used only the tiniest bit of oil so they were essentially just toasted rather than fried, and they really added something. The combination of the leaves and crunchy (very thinly chopped) fennel, crispy bread, and creamy dressing was lovely. And it used the tarragon vinegar! A whole tbsp of it!

Like.

Second salad was good, but not as good as the first one. Couldn't find any pears (it is February...) so used Nigel's suggested substitute of a sharp apple, and again, it balanced out the aniseedy flavour of the fennel really well. The dressing wasn't as good as the first salad, but was super simple, just lime juice and olive oil.

Went well with the pork chops in the next post...

10: Sauteed chicken with spice, fennel and cream, p367

I bought a fennel bulb last weekend, hoping to make 'a salad of fennel, winter leaves and Parmesan', the second recipe in the book. I've scoured the shops and searched online and it looks like I'm going to have to buy some online which will take weeks what with the lack of post at the moment (serious ice here, and no post for 4-5 days now)... unless I make some! I have tarragon, I have cider vinegar/red wine vinegar/white wine vinegar. many many recipes for tarragon vinegar online, but they all take a couple 2-3 weeks minimum so the salad recipe will have to wait for a while (and another bulb of fennel). Trekking around West London seems like a lot of effort for 1 tbsp of tarragon vinegar, but it's used in the 'Chicken with vermouth, tarragon and cream' recipe later in the book, and I'm not going to substitute! So I've got a bottle of tarragon vinegar brewing gently in the wine cupboard... ready in a couple of weeks :)

So, what to do with a spare fennel bulb, Nigel? He clearly likes the stuff - there are 5 recipes using it in the Diaries. Unfortunately I don't like fennel - toooooo aniseedy - so it's going to be fun. Maybe I'll start to like it during the course of this year!

Tonight's dinner therefore, a mild spicy/mustardy creamy chicken dish. Very easy - well seasoned chicken legs/thighs panfried in a little oil until scrummyly crispy and golden, sauteed fennel, lightly cooked spice paste, and a good dollop of cream. Lovely jubbly. And the fennel added a nice texture and it's very distinctive flavour was definitely there but wasn't too overpowering. Success!

I didn't have any chilli powder (I have a huge range of spices and herbs, but only dried chillis, chilli flakes, cayenne pepper etc) - so I ground up some tiny dried chillis in the pestle and mortar, along wit the other spices. Probably made it a bit hotter than chilli powder would have done, oops!  

I also took the opportunity to try out my new toy from Lakeland. I love Lakeland :) It's a microwave rice steamer - woohoo! Okay, I know rice isn't exactly difficult to cook, but I find is a bit stressful trying to make it really nice and fluffy (ie. weighing and using the right volume of water, yadda yadda) as I'm often in the middle of something else and get distracted so it gets stuck to the pan... or if I do the loads of water and drain it at the end option, it just ends up a bit soggy and disappointing... All this is is a big clear pot with a removable pot inside, slightly raised up and with holes in it, and a lid. Rinse the rice in the inner pot, pop it in the larger pot, add boiling water from the kettle to just cover the rice, pop lid on, stick it in the microwave for 10mins, stirring halfway though. Ta-daaaaa! And it works perfectly! Nice light, fluffy rice, perfectly cooked, no mess, eaaasy peasy :) Am I lazy, or am I lazy?