BRAISED FENNEL WITH CHICKPEAS AND HERBS

100% PLANT BASED 100% DELICIOUS

I get asked a lot about what I like to cook when entertaining for friends who prefer not to eat meat or choose to eat entirely plant based. Often it is with an undertone of sarcasm, almost as though the person asking already knows (or thinks they know) that there isn’t really anything good at all.

They are of course wrong and usually I manage to convince them so but it’s true that there is still some stigma around veganism, certainly within my parents generation. My brothers girlfriend is vegan and just about every time she sits at a table with people of my parents aged she is interrogated about why she chooses to eat this way. She is far from feeble when it comes to confrontation and I always admire her quick wit and grace as she calmly dismisses their confusion and ‘concern' and returns to her supper. But I also think how boring it must be and how tiresome the conversation is.

Personally I’ve been through stages of eating no meat, to some meat, to no red meat, to landing somewhere in the middle. At home, my husband and I eat vegetarian about 40% of the time and when the opportunity arises to cook for friends who eat this way too I take it with joy. Some of my best recipes have come from trying to work with vegetables to create something both substantial and spectacular and this recipe falls into that category. The method is simple and echoes that of cooking meat, searing the fennel first then letting it braise with the chickpeas in a bath spiked with herbs and spices. The resulting flavour is rich and full and a delight on the dinner table for both meat eaters and plant eaters alike.

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THE RECIPE