Fun With Fennel

This is only my second time cooking with fennel, but after seeing it as a recurring theme in several cooking shows this week, I thought it must be a sign...I should cook more with fennel. So after brainstorming a bit, I came up with a fairly quick and easy recipe for pan-seared chicken with fennel and roasted tomatoes.

I wasn't sure how much Mark would enjoy fennel, so I made sure I had something he'd really love (roasted tomatoes) on stand-by, just in case. He'd only had fennel once before, and it was raw in a salad. I don't recall him complaining about it, so I figured he would be okay if I sauteed some up to serve with the chicken. (He usually doesn't complain much anyways...)

Fennel smells very licoricey (if that's even a word) but tastes slightly less licoricey when cooked. The fennel tops (which look like fronds of a tropical plant), to me, still retain a strong licorice taste regardless of being cooked or not.

So here's the ingredients and recipe if you decide to do this one in your kitchen:

• 1 lb boneless chicken breasts (or breast tenderloins)
• 1 fennel bulb, sliced (chop and keep tops for later use)
• 12 grape tomatoes
• 1 cup chicken broth
• extra virgin olive oil
• sea salt
• crushed black pepper

Chicken & Fennel
Pour generous amount of olive oil into two skillets, enough to coat bottom, and put on medium-high heat. When pans are hot, add chicken to one (salt and pepper top side) and sliced fennel to the other. Cook chicken for 4 minutes on each side (or 1-2 minutes longer if using large boneless breasts). Stir fennel occasionally until golden brown then add chicken broth; cook for about 2 more minutes. Add fennel with chicken broth into the skillet with chicken; let cook for about 2 more minutes. Add a few of the fennel tops to the skillet during these last 2 minutes.

Tomatoes
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Slice 12 grape tomatoes into halves (top and bottom). Place on a greased baking sheet. Douse with olive oil and add salt and pepper. Cook in oven for about 5 minutes.

Before going into the oven

As you plate your meal, scoop out the chicken with some of the fennel (there will probably be some broth that hasn't cooked out, as well) then add several tomatoes around and on top of the chicken and fennel. You can even take some of the left over fennel tops and garnish the plate; place a few tomato halves on the garnish for a nice, finished look.

As an additional side, I also cooked some whole-grain pasta and sprinkled it with shredded mozzarella cheese (mmmmm...my favorite!). Feel free to add any side you like, but you can just leave it as is and serve the chicken, fennel, and tomatoes as one main dish.

The recipe above can serve four people, but we did bump up our servings a bit, and still had some left over...so we managed about three servings altogether. My final product, as I served it (with the pasta), was 505 calories.

By the way, Mark did enjoy the fennel; he said it had a different, but very good flavor. So get your fennel fix on today...and I'm sure I'll be cooking with it again!