I was fifty years old before I had tasted fennel! I'm a cook, but fennel had never interested me, until a friend described its fresh flavor. I had looked at lots of recipes for baked fish dishes that included fennel, but that combination of fish and licorice didn't interest me! I'm still not crazy about fish and fennel, but I'm crazy about fennel!
Fennel is an ingredient in many recipes from the Middle East, but it is also used in many German salads, and fennel seed is a primary ingredient in the flavoring of Italian sausages. The bulb, the feathery leaves and the seeds are used in cooking.
Sheet pan meals are featured in probably thousands of websites! I found recipes for Roast Chicken and Fennel in various places and made it my own. You should do that, too. Use my recipe as inspiration, but make it your own!
In addition to these ingredients, I used a baby carrots, tiny potatoes and 6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
Seasonings included Paul Prudhomme's Poultry Seasoning, salt and pepper.
Clean the fennel and slice the bulb. Slice the lemon and the onion. In a sheet pan, place the vegetables and drizzle them with a little olive oil. Lay the chicken pieces on top of the fennel, drizzle oil on the chicken and sprinkle with the seasonings. I used salt and pepper on the vegetables.
Roast the sheet pan dinner at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes. Enjoy it! The savory, fresh flavors are exceptional. Make sure you include a lemon slice on every plate and squeeze the lemon juice over the chicken. Garnish each serving with a sprig of the fennel leaf. Delicious! I'll share this post with some of the parties listed on my sidebar. Make sure you click through to see those, too!
There are lots of other ways to prepare fennel. I love it thinly sliced in fresh salads. Try it with slices of apples and a light vinaigrette. Try it with bite size pieces of watermelon, lightly drizzled with lemon juice. It is also great added to a salad of mixed salad greens with poppy seed dressing. Do a little internet search and you'll find lots of new ways to use this vintage vegetable!
