Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Braised Fennel with Blood Orange

I saw a recipe the other day for Braised Fennel over on my favorite site Simply Recipes.  Fennel has a licorice flavor and I'm not a lover of licorice.  My only experience with Fennel until tonight was slicing it thin and making a salad of orange sections and red onion that I learned to make when I lived in Italy a lifetime ago.  Cooking fennel never entered my mind.  I really wanted to try this recipe but it called for some sambuca which would just enhance the licorice flavor and bring it out more.  So I dropped the sambuca and added some other changes.  What I came up with is this.

Braised Fennel with Blood Orange

2 fennel bulbs
2 TBLS of butter
3 TBLS of Smart Balance (or 3 more butter but I'm trying to be healthy)
salt & pepper
the zest of 1 blood orange
the juice of 1 blood orange
1 cup of chicken stock


Clean the fennel bulbs and cut the green tops off.


Slice them in half and then into 4 or 5 slices.


Melt the butter and smart balance in a large fry pan. 


Add fresh ground pepper and sea salt and brown on both sides.


Zest and juice 1 small blood orange.


Sprinkle the zest and juice and add 1cup of chicken stock to the browned fennel and braise. 


Cook until most of the stock has been absorbed about ten minutes.


Oh my God good....If you are a fan of licorice check out the recipe on Simply Recipes.

No comments:

Post a Comment