Florence fennel (also known as anise), the bulbs that taste of licorice when raw and sweet celery when cooked were completely alien to me when I decided to prepare an entry for this month's Fennel "Beet 'n Squash" battle, this time hosted by Melody Fury of the BouchonFor2 blog.

When I went looking for ideas for how to prepare it, I found this variety of fennel is as often served thinly sliced and raw as it is cooked simply. In fact, last month's beet winner, Shao of FriedWontons4u and Lan of Angry Asian Creations blogs recommended I slice it thin, drizzle it in good olive oil, and grill it. Chef Dave Neil, owner of Ottawa's Piggy Market (new website!), recommended slicing it thin and serving it in a salad with thinly shaved Parmesan, a peppery green like arugula, and a vinaigrette made from truffle oil and champagne vinegar.

Throwing all common sense to the wind, I decided to completely re-work a shrimp pot pie I found on Google Images to feature gently sweated sliced fennel.

Here is my entry:

Fennel and Shrimp Pot Pie

Fennel and Shrimp Pot Pie, an alternate serving
Unlike my other forays in the pot pie arena, I substituted a thickened cauliflower cream for a veloute (or a bechemel) and deconstructed the dish. The cream, however, was infused with fennel and onion to simulate the melding of flavours that comes from baking a pot pie. Everything was cooked separately.

Why? Well, when I originally attempted this dish, I thought the thickened cauliflower cream, essentially a puree of cauliflower, potato, and onion, had enough starch that the dairy would not curdle. Unfortunately, even chilling the cream before topping with puff pastry produced the following unappetizing mess after baking.

Curdled First Attempt

An Unappetizing Mess
After some thought, I decided that either I go back to a heavy starch-based sauce (employing a roux or a heat stable starch slurry like SlowGel) or I deconstruct the dish, assembling the components, sauce, shrimp, fennel, and crust, when plating. I chose the latter.

Recipe

2 bulbs of fennel

sliced fennel beginning to sweat

onion and fennel frond infusion

one head of cauliflower and potatoes

disassembled head of cauliflower

cauliflower, potato, and finely chopped onion sweat

cauliflower mixture simmered in milk and fennel infusion

blending smooth in batches

passing the cauliflower cream through a fine strainer

adding cream

resultant cream should coat the back of a spoon

At this stage, the cream makes a fine soup...

Cream of Cauliflower Soup

To make the puff pastry stars and pine trees...

store-bought puff pastry

puff pastry cut, brushed with an egg wash, and baked

they float in the cauliflower cream

What You will Need:

• 2 bulbs of fennel
• 1 large cauliflower
• 2 small potatoes (3 if you want a thicker consistency)
• 3 small onions (or one and a half medium ones)
• olive oil for sweating the vegetables
• 750 mL (3 cups) water
• 600 mL (2.5 cups) 2% milk
• 142 mL (0.5 cups) table cream (18%)
• kosher salt for seasoning
• egg for brushing the puff pastry
• shrimp
• 2% milk for poaching the shrimp

Please note that the following method mixes prep and cooking.

Method:

1. Pre-heat an oven to 400F.
2. Start defrosting the puff pastry.
3. Place the water into a pot and place it on medium-low heat. Let the water heat, but do not allow it to simmer.
4. Clean the two bulbs of fennel by chopping off the fronds, quartering the bulbs, and coring them.
5. Slice the fronds and add them to the water.
6. French one of the three small onions and add them to the water.
7. While the water infuses with the onion and fennel, thinly slice the cleaned fennel and place it into a cold metal bottomed pan.
8. French the second of the three small onions and add it to the pan.
9. Add 2-3 tbsp of olive oil.
10. Add a pinch of salt.
11. Place the pan on a burner set to medium heat and sweat the sliced fennel until it is just fork tender. Neither the onion nor the fennel should colour. If it does, turn the heat down to medium-low.
12. When the fennel is just fork tender, remove it and the onion to a bowl. It will further soften slightly.
13. While the fennel is sweating, core the cauliflower and chop the tender stalks and florets into small pieces.
14. Peel the potatoes and dice them into 1 cm x 1 cm pieces.
15. Finely chop the third small onion.
16. Place the cauliflower, potatoes, and onion into the pan used to sweat the fennel.
17. Again, add another 2-3 tbsp of olive oil and a pinch of salt.
18. Sweat this mixture for 10 minutes, starting with the burner set to medium. The heat may need to be lowered to medium-low.
19. Strain the fennel-infused water from the pot into the pan, discarding the fronds and onion.
20. Add the milk and bring the mixture up to a simmer with the burner set to medium.
21. Again lower the heat to medium-low and simmer the mixture for 10-15 minutes. The cauliflower and potatoes should be slightly beyond fork tender, rather soft.
22. Remove the pan from the heat. Let it cool 2 minutes.
23. While the mixture is still hot, carefully ladle equal amounts of liquid as solid into a blender in batches and blend it smooth.
24. Pass the batches through a strainer into a heat-proof metal container.
25. Carefully mix in the cream.
26. Once everything is strained, place the container into a hot water bath to keep warm. I use a post with 3-4 inches of water on a burner set to medium.
27. Cut shapes out of the puff pastry using cookie cutters and brush them with beaten egg.
28. Bake them in the pre-heated oven for 15 minutes.
29. While the puff pastry is baking, poach shrimp in milk, heated to simmering, in a pot on a burner set to medium heat. Usually, I cook 4 shrimps for each diner.
30. Assemble the dish by pouring the cauliflower cream into a soup dish; adding the sweated sliced fennel and cooked shrimp; and topping with the baked puff pastry.

By de-constructing the pot pie, every component is cooked optimally. The soup is velvet smooth and has a very clean taste, neither rich nor light. Combined together, fennel and onion can be tasted throughout.

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