FENNEL CHUTNEY WITH APPLE PEEL
I am a real fennel fan. Fennel is one of the healthiest vegetables. It is a real healing plant, very good to relief peoples`stomach problems. Fennel seeds are a very fine cooking spice as well as a good tea to calm your stomach down. Fennel has a mild, sweet taste and can be used in many variations. This fennel chutney has been in my head for a very long time. I refined it over the last weeks and it now is a very tasty product – ready to blog.
Besides the fennel chutney you can serve fresh goat chese or any other mild creamy, tasty cheese.
If you prefer a stronger goat cheese, rolled in ashes or stuff like that, you can add a complete red chili into the chutney and remove it after cooking. The chili should not be too strong, because if it is, it overloads all the fine sweet fennel flavours.
Chutneys can be stored in jars like marmelade, if they have enough acid, salt and sugar. Even if the fennel chutney has, you should serve it fresh, because the mild flavours do not stay stable for a very long time. With the fennel tubers you can create your main dis: like oven fennel or fennel potatoe gratin, or a fennel summer salad with roasted chicken or grilled fish. Recipies for all that will follow soon.
Fennel sticks from 2, 3 or 4 fennel tubers (round about 12). Buy very fresh organic fennel and chose the tubers with long sticks and a lot of green.
1 red apple
1 organic lemon: juice and small chopped lemon peel
1 teaspoon of very mild sea salt, if not mild, use half a tea spoon in the beginning and taste
1 clove of garlic
2 small chopped shallots
1 spoon of white mild balsamico
3 spoons of sugar
200-250 ml water
black pepper
1 red chili if you like
How to do it
Wash all vegetables. Cut off the sticks of your fennel. Do not use too much fennel weed within the chutney. Keep that for your second fennel dish and for decoration purpose. Cut the sticks into very fine slices.
Wash the apple carefully. Peel it not too thin. Useing a knife is better than a peeler. Cut the peel into small slices. Cut the apple into small little cubes (without the core). Cut the shallots into thin slices. Peel the washed lemon with into zests and cut the cests again into very small pieces. Squeeze out the juice. Peel the garlic clove. Put all the vegetables into a small pot. Add the vinegar (use good, organic white balsamico otherwise it gets too sour), the lemon juice, water, and the red chili. Cook the chutney slowly down for 20-25 minutes. Stir from time to time. If you like the chutney to be very smooth, add a bit of water and cook it a bit longer. Taste the salt and sugar level carefully within the cooking phase.
If you want to store the chutney, fill it hot into preserving jars. Otherwise let the chutney cool down, lid closed. Check the salt and acid level before serving, if necessary, add some vonegar, and salt. Serve the chutney with goat cheese, a pinch of black pepper and fine white bred.
dolce vita ahoi!
monika ebert • mobile minds
monika ebert • mobile minds
