You’ve seen it before. Some onion-looking thing that that smells ever so subtly of licorice. The stalks look like fern-like celery. What on earth do you do with fennel?

It turns out you can do quite a lot. You can saute, braise, bake, grill, or eat it raw. It kind of has the consistency of celery with the bite of licorice. When you cook it, the licorice taste becomes a lot more subtle, replaced with sweetness.

After watching an episode of Iron Chef last weekend, I decided I’d do one by myself and have Paul, my boyfriend (and photographer of most of my food), choose the ingredient. He said anise, I countered, “How about fennel?” What resulted were three courses all using fennel bulb. The appetizer and dessert were fennel-altered takes on famous recipes from New Orleans restaurant, Mr. B’s and Yountville bistro, Bouchon. I’ll be posting all of these shortly.