Rustic Potato and Fennel Tortilla. Simplicity at its best!

Perfect as a side dish or a veggie main course!

This is a recipe that I cooked for my mums 50th dinner party! I knew I was cooking a meat main course for my guests which I didn’t mind but I wanted something other than the side salads to be my main course, I decided on doing a tortilla because it is a perfect potato side dish to match the chicken I roasted and also it would be filling enough for me!

I’ve made plenty of tortillas over the years, usually a vessel for using up everything and anything that is in the fridge at the end of the week, but my favourite is still a simple potato, onion and garlic tortilla. I decided to add fennel for two reasons, one – it made it that extra bit special for the occasion, and two – my sister hadn’t tried fennel before and this was a perfect way to show it off!

I personally prefer cooked fennel to raw fennel due to the fact that it becomes mellow and sweet rather than sharp and aniseedy. It doesn’t over power the tortilla in anyway as long as you cook it down enough first.

This recipe brings back happy memories of being sat around the table by the pool in Spain tucking into a feast of salads, tortilla and tapas style dishes. Spain is where I learnt how to make tortilla and its now a staple recipe in my house

Serves 6

Gluten free, Vegetarian, Dairy Free

Warning: this recipe may make you want to stick a summer dress on and brave the cold for an alfresco lunch!

4 Large Potatoes
1 Fennel Bulb
1 Large Onion
2 Garlic Cloves
1 Teaspoon Fennel Seeds
8 Eggs
Salt and Pepper
Olive oil

Wash the potatoes then slice into 2cm thick slices (leave the skin on) and boil in a large pan for 5-6 minutes until soft to touch with a fork but not so it is easy to break apart. Once cooked drain and put to one side for a moment.

Thinly slice the onion and fennel, reserve the fennel fronds for decoration or to add to a side salad. In a large frying pan drizzle a little olive oil and on a medium heat and add the onion and fennel for 5 minutes then crush in the garlic, add the fennel seeds and a splash of water. Keep stirring these ingredients until everything is softened and juicy, approx 10 mins. You don’t want it to colour too much so a little trick is to add a small splash of water if it starts to brown, this slows the cooking slightly and cools everything down, just make sure the water has evaporated at the end.

Add the slices of potato to the pan and mix everything together with a wooden spoon or spatula. Add a sprinkle of salt and a good grind of pepper and cook until the potatoes have crisped up a little bit, around 5-6 minutes.

Spread everything around the pan so that it is evenly distributed and make sure the potato slices are flat (or at least that the top is even and smooth).

Crack the eggs into a jug or bowl and beat them well, then pour the eggs over the potato and fennel mix and using your wooden spoon gently push down through gaps in the potatoes to allow the egg to get in between everything.

Turn your grill on to a medium heat.

Cook the tortilla on the hob, gently giving everything a nudge every now and then to cook it evenly, for 4- 5 minutes until you can see that most of the egg is set. Transfer the pan to under the grill and finish it off for 2-3 minutes until the egg is completely set and the top is golden grown.

Turn out onto a large plate and allow to cool then slice it into 6 pieces.

You can make this in advance and then serve it cold or you can reheat it in the grill or the oven. This is perfect served with a red pepper and ricotta sauce (recipe coming soon)

Almost there bread rolls and an IOU

Before I begin I should probably just let you know that this post was written on sunday (20th May) and since then I am feeling a little better. Now please continue …

I’m having one of those days…….you know when you wake up feeling wide awake and assume it’s probably around 7am so you start to get up, then you spy the clock out of the corner of your eye and your worst nightmare hits home…it’s 1am and you’ve been in bed for 2 hours!! I then spent the rest of the night waking up every 30 minutes or so and feeling pretty darn sorry for myself the next day.

Then, when it was actually time to get up, a few hours of revision was followed by my attempt to make my own recipe bread rolls. With just an idea and a feeling of adventure I began but very soon my lack of baking knowledge and need for a glass of wine and a nice hot bath took over and by the end I was surrounded by a pile of half decent almost passable but definitely not “shout about” bread rolls and I have tears in my eyes and a sick feeling in my gut. Because that is me out of time for making bread rolls, with a big exam looming and no more fennel I am done!

Now these aren’t a complete disaster, as far as a bread roll goes it is edible, in fact it is quite fine. But my idea as a whole really has not come across well, the flavours are muddled and the beautifully caramelised, sweet and sticky fennel seeds on the top are in fact burnt to a crisp and really better off scraped into the bin! Never the less I have 15 rolls and I am not one to waste food! So I will be eating them of course!

So this post is not just one massive excuse to my offering of a bread roll, this is infact the epitomy of my friday challenges…a chance to learn! Well… I think it started to go wrong when I cooked the fennel in a cup of vegetable stock and began to panic that maybe that would strip all of the flavour out, or make it too soggy. It seemed ok so I left it to cool to room temperature and then made the dough. Before the first rise I scrunched all of the fennel and zest of an orange into the dough and soon had what can only be described as a slimy ball of dough sliding around my kitchen top. I added flour…more flour….more flour untill I felt it was back to a consistency of dough I recognised then I started to shape it into rolls.

In comes Scott “I thought you let it rise once before shaping it”….. Me “No, do you, I don’t know I can’t remember”. Frantic scramble through my Jamie Oliver book. “Oh yeah I do, aahh”. I quickly squished all the perfectly shaped and weighed out rolls back into one big ball and leave it to rise.  One hour later I re shaped them into rolls and then left to rise for a second time. At this point I’m feeling fine and the rolls are looking good!

I dry fried some fennel seeds in a pan untill lightly toasted then added sugar and the juice of an orange. This idea originated from my Braised Cabbage recipe because when I added the fennel seeds and sugar to the cabbage magic happened, I had to stop myself eating it all there and then…caramelised fennel seeds were the bomb!
My fennel seeds unfortunately started to clump together and when I did try and put them onto the rolls they wouldn’t come off the spoon, or my finger and I ended up squashing alot of rolls trying to get the seeds on to them. Never mind I thought, it would still turn out amazing, my faith was still in these rolls!

I followed the cooking method from my LEON Baking book and added ice cubes to a preheated oven and put the rolls in for around 17 minutes. When I took them out the first thing I noticed was that the fennel seeds were black; clumped black little bitter balls of charcoal fury ready to make you wince at every mouthful! (At this point I was on the phone to my mum who sensibly suggested I just scrape them off, but in my over tired bad mood I insisted the whole world was over and this bread was the end of my life, how could I put burnt fennel seeds on my blog!?!?).

I tore one open straight from the oven, burning my fingers and my mouth and of course the inside was under cooked. At this point I should have known this was coming. I popped them back in for 3 minutes then left them on the side to cool down. Later on, me and a very nervous looking Scott decided to try another roll, after Scott pointing out that it’s never an exciting moment when the chef presents you with food and says “This is going to be disgusting, tell me what you think?”. I instantly didn’t like it even with the seeds scraped off. The fennel flavour was lost and a weird texture, the orange didn’t mix well and the bread had an over powering taste of flour!

So I won’t be sharing my recipe this time, but I am giving (promising) an IOU for my own recipe bread roll. Not everything turns out how you imagine and sometimes life can get in the way of even the most dedicated blogger (in my case a rather important exam) but it’s important to remember to laugh about it, learn what you can and move on to the next challenge! Which I can reveal is “Artichoke”, a vegetable I have been dying to conquer for a long time!

Seriously Simple Tomato and Fennel Pasta Sauce: Meat Free Monday

Sometimes I just really want a nice simple dinner which can be whipped up in no time and is still healthy. This usually means making a pasta dish! The flavours in this dish are so perfect for the nice summer weather we’ve been having over the weekend as the sweet apple juice brings the tomatoes to life and the slight tang to the fennel and its seeds help liven up the sauce!

A while ago a friend of mine had said how she couldn’t believe that people didn’t make their own pasta sauces as it’s so easy, and I felt a bit guilty because I often buy pasta sauce and when I did make it, it would just be a can of tomatoes with some basil and garlic in it! So I decided to experiment with flavours and textures and I think the key to this recipe is being patient with the onions and getting them really soft before adding the tomatoes. It makes for a more silky smooth sauce rather than being too chunky!

Theres not really much else to say about this dish other than here is the recipe:

This will make a big batch which will serve around 6-8. It is freezable so you can make a big amount and then save the left overs for a nice easy meal another day.

1 Onion
1 Fennel
2 Garlic Cloves
1 tspn Fennel Seeds
2 cans Chopped Tomatoes
2 tablespoons Apple Juice
Pinch Chilli Flakes
1/2 Lemon (juice)
Salt and Pepper
Spray oil or olive oil

Finely chop the onion and fennel and add to a saucepan with some spray oil. Cook them on a low heat for around 2-3 minutes then add the crushed garlic cloves and the fennel seeds. Continue to cook, stirring often, on the low heat untill the onion and fennel is soft and translucent.

Add the canned tomatoes, apple juice, lemon juice, chilli flakes and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Simmer the sauce untill the tomatoes have reduced and thickened.

Cook pasta of your choice and then stir the sauce into the drained cooked pasta. Serve with a bit of salad.

Fennel and Ricotta Risotto (Jamie’s Italy cookbook): Friday Challenge!

I’ve had quite a few new people join my blog since I started doing the Friday Challenges in January so I wanted to give a little recap before I go into March’s theme. You can see my initial idea here. I wanted to push myself to expand on skills I was already building and also try brand new techniques and ingredients. After reading loads of food blogs I realised there were so many things I had never cooked before and that had to be changed!!! I started with Tofu, then Polenta and now I am going to have a month making risotto.

I’ve chosen Risotto to be March’s Friday challenge because I have two risotto recipe’s I’ve cooked over and over again – mushroom risotto and butternut squash risotto – so I wanted to learn abit more about this dish, how it should actually be cooked, different techniques and flavour combinations and also to show that it can be very interesting and complex when done well!

When I was in France I flicked through my mums Jamie’s Italian Cookbook and found this recipe and knew it would be a perfect start to my Risotto challenge. I’m a massive fan of Jamie’s cooking and the way he transforms simple ingredients into beautiful food – this is no exception! I also liked this because he doesn’t use cream – being lactose intolerant I can cope with a bit of cheese but no cream thankyou! This recipe can be found here and the book can be bought from here.

Ok so on with the review – This technique is probably the most common way to cook risotto and it works by gently frying some of the fresh ingredients, then adding the rice and then adding one ladel of stock at a time. You wait untill the stock has been absorbed and then you add another ladel of stock etc untill the rice is cooked (You should have soft rice but still with a bit of bite.)

The recipe requires a lot of stirring and I have to admit I was stood over the pan for far longer than I wanted to be! I did end up drinking a large glass of the wine Id bought to go in the risotto whilst I was cooking it so sorry if my photos are blurry haha!

The things I did like about this way of cooking risotto is that you feel like your really building up a great dish, you care for it and nurture it with gentle stirring and a build up of flavours. The addition of fennel is just lovely and I liked the kick of chilli! Jamies looks a lot more colourful than mine so not sure what I missed but it still tasted great.

I think how you like your risotto can be a personal preference, some like it creamy, others a bit stiffer but I tried to just cook the rice al dente but with the sauce quite gooey. I found that if I ran my wooden spoon through the pan and the sauce oozed back into the centre then the rice slowly followed that was a good sign!

What have I learnt about Risotto?
Unlike Tofu and Polenta I had a better expectation of risotto because it’s an ingredient I have worked with before however I have always approached it with caution. I think what I have learnt this time is that adding ingredients in at different times can create layers of texture and make it abit more interesting. Also don’t be afraid to use big flavours and be original with it as long as you respect the concept of a risotto I don’t think you can go too wrong

Next Week I am making a Delia Smith recipe and hers is a baked risotto – no stirring yay!

Pea, Leek and Fennel Soup: Meat Free Monday

Another soup for January’s Meat Free Monday feature this week, mainly because I’ve been eating ALOT of soup but also because it’s a great way of settling down after the christmas period and getting some nutrients and vegetables!

I’m actually going to dedicate this recipe to my sister because she’s so supportive of every creative venture I do also she is always ringing me up saying “Becky make more soup”! So here is a soup that I think she will love!

Serves 4

1 Large Onion
1 Leek
1/2 Fennel
160g Peas (frozen)
2 Sticks Celery
1 Garlic Clove
850ml Vegetable stock
1 Small Bunch Mint
1 Small Bunch Parsley
Olive Oil

To prepare the vegetables – Finely dice the onion, slice the leek, celery and fennel and crush the garlic clove. Finely chop the herbs and put to one side.

Heat a drizzle of oil in a large saucepan and fry the onion, leek, celery and garlic for 1-2 minutes. Add the fennel, peas, mint and parsley and continue to fry for 4-5 minutes making sure you stir the vegetables well. Season with some black pepper and a little salt (remember powdered vegetable stock is usually quite salty).

Add the vegetable stock and simmer on a medium heat for 15 minutes.

You could eat this like a broth with out blending it, but the way I like it is to use a slotted spoon and remove two or three spoonfuls of the vegetables then blend the soup and stir the vegetables back in again. This makes it a smooth soup with a little texture!