a quick midweek supper: sausage and roasted fennel stew

sausage and roasted fennel stew
For me flattery is when someone requests one of my recipes or meals. It makes me absurdly happy. So last weekend's request for my Sunday lunch accompaniment of roasted fennel stew had me doing a little dance of glee on the inside. For years I was convinced that fennel was an acquired taste; now that I have decided that fennel is a taste that I have acquired it gives me a lot of pleasure that I can introduce friends to the flavours I have started to enjoy and the fact that they seem to like these flavours too is a definite bonus!

So I made the roasted fennel and tomato stew again to go with last Sunday's roast chicken. I had amended the recipe a little by dry-roasting a scattering of fennel seeds and coriander seeds, then whizzing them up in the blender and adding to the vegetables. These ground spices seemed to give the stew even more zest and zing and worked beautifully with my pomegranate roasted chicken.

There were some leftovers. Frankly, there always are - whether by design or because sometimes I just overdo things. I suspect though that the combination of a few grilled wild boar sausages that I had bought from Salvino, my local Italian deli, combined with the leftover roasted fennel and tomato stew which I served with a few wild leek potato cakes might become a firm fixture on the menu. The porky sausages had a hint of fennel and the sweet fruitiness of red wine which worked perfectly with my veg, all mopped up with some crisp garlicky potato cakes.

5 comments:

Petra said...

It looks so good, if I was at home I would run make some straight away! I have also "discovered" fennel, I might not be there in raw format yet but it is delicious cooked!

HB said...

Ah! Rachel, I'm requesting it. In a flask, delivered to my door. Please!!

Looks delicious. Funnily enough I'm REALLY into fennel at the moment and my grandmother is really into making sausage casseroles... I see a plan forming. Haha

Take care love xx

Marmaduke Scarlet said...

Whooo hooo Hamilton - I love it when a plan comes together! :)

Unknown said...

I always thought that I didn't much like fennel either but my tastes have changed now I'm older and I'm going to try this this weekend because it sounds like just the thing to get me on my way to loving fennel!

Marmaduke Scarlet said...

Hi Em, nice to see you again! I'd love to hear how you get on (even if the fennel doesn't win you over!)