Coming Up for Air: A Gentle Roast of Fennel and Cream

🎓 6th Year PhD • 📘 History • 🔋 Recharging

By the sixth year of my PhD, I was deep in Burnout 2.0. Not my favourite. It hit after I realised I had just six months left—until both my deadline and funding ran out. That realisation made me hope—no, believe—I could finish the thesis in that time. For context: I had rough drafts of everything except the introduction and had properly edited maybe one chapter. So yes, I was delusional. At least, given how I work. I’m a classic perfectionist—bordering on obsessive—and do not thrive on last-minute pressure. 

One especially bleak afternoon, while working on a source-heavy chapter, my computer crashed. I hadn’t saved anything. Cue meltdown. I booked a meeting with my supervisors, begged for an extension, and another break. That same night, my partner booked us a five-day trip to Italy—somewhere familiar and just about affordable. We spent the trip holed up in a lakeside pizzeria, eating thin-crust pizza and drinking obscene amounts of cheap prosecco. If I was going to be broke, I figured I might as well be broke pregnant with carbs and alcohol.

Our B&B host—one of those effortlessly elegant Italian women who somehow finds time to run a hospitality establishment and entertain equally fashionable friends on the terrace—cooked us dinner one night. I say dinner; it was a feast. The first course (‘Primi Piatti’) was a fennel gratin. I’d never eaten fennel before, and certainly not like this. It was exquisite. So much so, I asked for the leftovers at breakfast.

When we got home, I tried to recreate it. Of course, I didn’t quite manage it—but I liked the simplicity: a handful of ingredients showcasing one vegetable. It was easy on my wallet, and I didn’t have to think about more than one main element. Recharging during the holiday—and after—didn’t come easily or quickly. But learning to make a new vegetable taste good made me feel worthwhile, if only for a moment.

For those aniseed haters out there: I hear you. Although fennel is said to have an aniseed flavour, any such taste mellows in the oven, sweetened by the roasting and softened with cream and cheese. Put another way: the fennel makes an excellent delivery mechanism for all the luscious dairy. And it goes beautifully with fish, white meats, white wine, other vegetables—or just, you know, more of itself.

A few notes on the recipe: 

There are plenty of fennel gratin recipes online; this one’s an amalgamation of several. Some versions suggest adding spices, herbs, or other flavourings to the cream—nutmeg, mustard (I’d champion Dijon or wholegrain), paprika, or Italian herbs like thyme and rosemary. You could also splash in a bit of white wine or vermouth to thin the cream if needed instead of using fennel boiling water. Despite all these tempting variations, I’ve kept things simple—because then you might actually make it.

Adding cheese halfway through the baking time isn’t essential, although I firmly belong in the “more is more” camp when it comes to cheese. Many recipes also call for single cream, which I’ve used in the past (Germany, for some reason, has a glaring lack of proper full-fat cream—as well as functional clingfilm. If Sartre thought hell was other people, clearly he’d never had to live without either of these). You’re welcome to use single cream—skipping any thinning and adding a bit more if the fennel isn’t quite immersed—but honestly, why would you?

Servings: 4 as a side; 2 as a main           🥖 GF    🥕 V

Time:

👐 Hands-on: 25 minutes

⏳ Hands-off: 1 hour 15 minutes

Ingredients

• 4 medium fennel bulbs
• 250ml double cream
• 2 large or 3 medium garlic cloves
• 75g parmesan cheese (alternatively: hard cheeses like Pecorino and Gruyère work well, as do crumblier blue cheeses. Use whatever you like—it’s your party—just make sure it can be loosely stirred into the cream)
• Fat pinch of salt and good grind of black pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C (180°C fan). Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil.
2. While the water heats, rinse the fennel bulbs and trim off the stems or “chimneys.” Save the fronds for later. The rest of the discards can be used to make stock, if that’s your thing. Slice each bulb into 4 wedges, cutting out the cores.
3. Once the water is boiling, add the fennel and simmer over medium-high heat for 10–15 minutes, until just parboiled. It should yield slightly when pierced with a knife or fork but still have some resistance.
4. Meanwhile, grate the parmesan (or whatever cheese you’re using—crumbled blue cheese works too) and mince or grate the garlic. Stir 50g (about two-thirds) of the cheese into the cream, along with the garlic, salt, and black pepper. This is also the time to add any extra seasonings (see intro).
5. When the fennel is ready, save a ladleful of the cooking water, then drain. Tip the wedges into a baking dish—they should sit snugly but not be crammed.
6. Pour the cream mixture over the fennel. If it’s not coating enough, add a splash of the reserved water. The fennel should sit about halfway to two-thirds deep in the liquid.
7. Bake for 20 minutes, then sprinkle over the remaining cheese and return to the oven for another 20 minutes, or until the fennel is tender all the way through and the top is golden. Alternatively, sprinkle on the remaining cheese at the start, cover with foil, and remove it halfway through baking.
8. Let stand for 10 minutes before scattering with the fennel fronds. Then tuck in.

Storage

Keeps for up to 5 days in the fridge or 3 months in the freezer. It’s great at room temperature, but to reheat from chilled: cover with foil and place in a preheated oven at 180°C until piping hot throughout.