Seeing as Weekend Herb Blogging was so much fun last week, I thought I’d have another go this weekend.

My aim was to use up some of the leftover veggies in my fridge. With a thunderstorm brewing outside, and a brown paper bag of sebago potatoes just asking to be eaten, I couldn’t go past a thick, hearty soup.

The question was what to pair with the potatoes. On a whim, I picked up what I hoped was a fennel in my local fruit shop. I’ve never cooked with a fennel before so I wasn’t sure exactly what it tasted like or if it would be a good potato companion, but its thick white bulb and feathery leaves just had a soup-vegetable look to me.

After some quick Internet research I found out that fennel had an aniseed flavour (yum) and there was a strong tradition of combining it with potato to make soup (phew). So with thunder pounding over Bondi and rain streaming down my street I set about making what turned out to be a great dinner.

Ingredients

1 fennel
3 sebago potatoes
1 small brown onion
3 cups vegetable stock
1 can of chickpeas
1 tsp caraway seeds
dash of lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste
drizzle of olive oil

Method

Cut the leaves and stems off the fennel, and the bottom off the bulb. Chop the fennel bulb into thin strips much like you would a leek. Finely chop the onion. Cut the potato into evenly sized cubes.

Heat the olive oil in a large saucepan. Saute the onion until it turns translucent. Add the caraway seeds. After a minute add the potato and fennel and cook for about five minutes.

Add the stock. Bring to the boil, then simmer on a low heat until the potato has softened so that it breaks up easily when pushed with a spoon.

Put the soup in a food blender and puree. When the consistency is smooth, transfer back to the saucepan. Add the chickpeas and a dash of lemon. Heat for a few minutes until the chickpeas are hot then serve immediately with a sprinkle of cracked pepper on top.

Some notes on the recipe

• I used caraway seeds because I had them lying around in the cupboard. They gave a nice flavour to the soup, but they’re not essential. Don’t think you need to rush out and buy them in you don’t have some already.
• I used my own homemade liquid vegetable stock and the same amount of water.
• My stock is heavy on the salt and garlic, so I didn’t add either to the recipe. If you’re using stock cubes, I’d fry a few cloves of minced garlic with the onion. If you want to make a really tasty soup, roast some garlic cloves in aluminium foil for about 20 minutes then break the flesh out of the papery shell and add it to the onion.
• You can use a hand blender if you don’t have a food processor. But it will be messier.
• I threw the chickpeas in because a couple of weeks ago I had the potato and chickpea pasta ragout pictured below at an Italian restaurant in Adelaide, and it rocked my world. It worked well because the whole chickpeas added some structure to the thick pureed soup base.

Better the fennel you know

So, if like me you’re not a fennel expert, here are some facts:

• Fennel is herb, and hails from Southern Europe and South West Asia.
• You can use multiple parts of fennel, including the bulb, the seeds, and the leaves.
• Apparently fennel was one of nine herbs sacred to Anglo Saxons.
• It has also been used as insect repellent, and to ward off witchcraft. I call that versatile.

For more info, take a look at wikipedia, or learn about growing it here.
Sher of What Did you Eat has the full round-up so stop by to check it out.

Share This