Beans and baby fennel

Beans and fennel, this for me was an unexpected great combination.

A few weeks ago whilst having lunch at Vivo in Palm Cove I chose the fish of the day and it had shaved fennel as a vegetable. Yesterday, as well as beans I bought some baby fennel at the South Melbourne market. At that stage I was not sure what I would do with the fennel. When preparing our meal tonight I topped the beans and steamed them. In the meantime I shaved the raw fennel. To the steamed beans I added some olive oil, freshly grated nutmeg and ground black pepper. The shaved fennel was warmed up in this mix. As the photo shows the dish did not only look attractive, it also had a beautiful fresh and earthy taste. I will do this again; it was a simple, tasty and very healthy combination. We had some fish fillets with this. My husband coated them first with a whole beaten egg and covered them with breadcrumbs. Fried beautifully, they were still juicy on the inside and nice and crunchy on the outside.

Bon appétit!

Health information

Green beans: great source of fiber, vitamin C and K, the latter great for bone health.

Fennel: great source of vitamin C, fiber and potassium. Fennel helps to relieve indigestion.