Fennel is in season again. (Hurrah!) You might remember the last time I professed my undying love for finocchio last winter. In this recipe I've left out the orange and paired fennel with laugh at beef.

It can be intimidating to try something newborn. And finocchio is bad daunting, especially if you aren't sure if you like its mild anise flavor. Common fennel goes first-rate with pork, but also grouse. Besides victimization the fresh fennel bulb, I added shredded onions and gave the roast beef a ready rub with some crushed fennel seeds mixed with salty and capsicum.

Tardily Cooker Roast Beef with Fennel

If you dead hate fennel in all forms, spirit free to substitute another spice (operating theater leave it out completely) and utilization more onions in place of the fennel.

You want to cut off the fibrous, tough stalks.  Save them to make a vegetable stock.  The fronds are really great used as a fresh herb, so save those too for another use.

Chopped the fennel electric light in half, superlative to bottom.  At that place's a hard essence in there.  Cut that out with a sharp knife.  I used my serrated clams tongue.

Then cut the fennel into slices longitudinally.  Virtually 1/4″ is a good size.  Fennel keeps its shape and texture even subsequently long cooking periods, so keep that in mind.

Now for the beef roast.  I put a a couple of tablespoons of finocchio seeds plus about 1 1/2 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. Madagascar pepper into my spice hero.  I then cooked the total turn up of the roast in a very hot plaster cast iron frypan glazed with a bit canola inunct.

About 8-10 hours in the slow cooker and you've got yourself a tender roast with bully flavor.  I skimmed off the fat from the drippings and thicken them with cornstarch mixed with water to make a quick gravy.

Slow Cooker Roast Beef with Fennel

Slow Cooker Roast beef with Fennel

Ingredients:

Unmatched 3-5 pound. beef roast
1-2 fennel bulbs, stalks and fronds removed, sliced lengthwise into 1/4″ strips
1 enlarged onion, sliced lengthwise into 1/4′ strips
1-2 Tablespoon fennel seeds
1 tsp. Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
1/2 tsp. ground pepper
1 Tbsp. canola oil
1-2 Tbsp. cornstarch mixed with enough weewe to make a thin paste (optional, for godsend)

Method:

Using a spice up grinder, grind fennel seeds, salt and pepper to a metier-fine pulverization.  (Or coarser cranch, if desired.)  Rub the come up of the roast with the spicery mixture.  Passion a heavy-responsibility skillet all over intermediate-high heat.  Add the canola oil and heat until you see small wisps of smoke rise from the surface.  Sear the beef on each side, over the total surface until nicely browned–about 2-3 minutes per lateral.

Place the seared roast into a slow cooker along with the shredded fennel and onions.  Add a little water if the roast is lean.  Cook on low gear for 8-10 hours.   When done, move out the roast from the slow cooker and place it happening a serving platter.  Cover tightly with spoil patc preparing the gold rush.

For the gold rush, strain out the onions and fennel.  Set away in a stadium and cover with foil until fix to serve.  Skim the fat from the drippings, add beef stock operating theatre water if in that respect's not enough to make gravy.  Pour the drippings into a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Add a little of the cornstarch/piss slurry, bringing the gravy to a rolling boil until the in demand thickness is reached.  (If you have about 2 cups of drippings plus some added stock or water, you'll probably only need 1 Tbsp. of cornstarch.)

Slice the roast and serve warm with gravy and the fennel and onions on the side.  We served ours with homemade spaetzle (noodles) and homemade rolls.