Joy of joys; I received two small-medium fennel bulbs from Goosemoor this week. Fennel is one of my absolute favourite vegetables but, as if that wasn’t good enough, they also included a lemon. If they’d asked me what would be in my ideal veg box it may well have contained these items, they go together so well and they make one of my favourite dinners. Just one more ingredient is needed to complete the dish and I walk to the shops.
I mentioned Lowther Street the other day, when I wrote about Amma’s Oven. I noted then that the street is in a bit of an unpromising location but that Amma’s Oven was worth the trek if you don’t live locally. Next door is Baltija’s. Polish and Baltic food stores have proliferated across the UK in the last decade, from big cities to market towns there cannot be many people in England far from one following the movement of workers after the largescale expansion of the EU in the 2000’s.
The quality of these stores, like everything in life, can vary, but Baltija’s is definitely better than average, cramming an enormous amount of charcuterie and dry and frozen goods into a small space. The musty smell of sweet biscuits and dill is definitely authentic, reminiscent of every small shop between Poznan and Ulaanbaatar. Today, I ignore the tempting, bewildering, array of sausages and pick up a piece of baked gammon.
Coming home, I trim the fennel and cut it into strips about a quarter of an inch wide. I cut a half inch slice from the gammon (boiled ham would be better, but I work with what I’ve got) and dice it into small cubes, then put both into a hot pan with a little olive oil, a sliced clove of garlic, some black pepper and the zest from the lemon. When the fennel is beginning to caramelise I deglaze with the juice from the lemon and then take it off the heat and stir in the finely chopped feathery leaves from the top of the fennel bulb, topped up with a little parsley (there weren’t enough leaves attached to the bulb to use on their own), and some cooked penne with a little of it’s liquor. Finally, I dress it with a fruity olive oil – this one’s from the Veneto but those from Liguria are good too. The sharp lemon, the fresh fennel and the savoury ham combine well in this quick and healthy dinner.
York Food 