Potato Puree with Fried Fennel and Oranges

Finally a fully equipped kitchen again! On vacation I could prepare the daily meal, but at home you have much more degrees of freedom - and just know your tools better. What I missed most of all was the induction stove. You don’t realize what you have in it until you have to cook on a classic ceramic hob again…..

Nevertheless, the big cooking actions don’t start again right away, after all, it’s everyday life again and the evening meal wants to be prepared quickly after the first long day. For this I prepare

• 1 blood orange, filleted, a part of the peels saved
• 500 g potatoes, peeled and sliced thinly
• 1 bulb of fennel, cleaned and sliced
• some fennel greens chopped and saved

I also need

• 2 bay leaves
• 50 ml milk
• salt
• pepper

I boil the potatoes in salted water for about 10 minutes along with the bay leaves. Why do I slice them? I follow a recommendation by Vijay Sapre of effilee, who wants to use the increased surface area in this way to positively influence the starch conversion process.

I continue to positively influence the potatoes by mashing the steamed slices to puree with a masher and stirring in 3 tsp of very finely chopped orange zest (just the outermost, orange of the zest please) and the milk. Already very fine.

Meanwhile, the fennel slices are ready fried in olive oil, it must be a little browned and soft. I put them on just after the potatoes and then roasted them on just under 2/3 heat, turning occasionally. The puree and fennel go on preheated plate, the filleted orange wedges go very briefly in the still hot pan where they deglaze the pan juices from the fennel. Then off to the plate with it and the dish decorated with the fennel slaw.

Very nice, sauce is not really missing as the oranges are juicy enough and the olive oil around the fennel replaces the butter that is missing in this case (which I would have otherwise liked to add to the puree, say about 100 grams).

photorealistic image of a dinner with fried fennel slices, with potato puree, peeled orange wedges, long lens, depth of field, food magazine style