Fennel has been a pretty trendy ingredient amongst the 'Abel and Cole' types for a while, and as a consequence, I have sort of shirked away from it in the vegetable aisle. Who knew it was possible to inflict a bit of inverse snobbery on vegetables! When I recently acquired some (from a friend who had it left over from her vegetable box delivery), I decided to stop being a twat and give it a go, and came up with this yummy dish.
Fennel is often used to add flavour and crunch to salad, but is also delicious roasted, allowing the sweet juices to caramelise and intensify. Its aniseedey flavour is a wonderful accompaniment to pork, so I decided to roast some sliced fennel up with some good quality pork sausages, the result of which was a very easy, relatively healthy dinner.
It might seem like a given to drench your meal in gravy if it involves sausages, but in this dish, it would probably spoil the delicate flavour of the fennel. I find however, throwing a few quartered tomatoes into the roasting pan creates enough sauciness for you not to want gravy anyway.
Serve with new potatoes.
Ingredients (serves 2)
1 bulb of fennel, sliced thinly
6 good quality pork sausages
2 tomatoes, quartered
olive oil
New potatoes to serve
Directions
Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas Mark 5. Lay slices of fennel and tomato quarters along the bottom on a roasting tin and drizzle with a good amount of olive oil. If you use good quality sausages, not a lot of fat will cook out, so the oil is important.
Prick sausages and lay on top of fennel. Place in the oven cook for 30-35mins, turning sausages occasionally to ensure even browning.
Remove from oven and divide between two plates. Serve with a few freshly boiled new potatoes.