Apple & chicken traybake with tricksy Florence fennel

Once I grew rows of bulb fennel beautiful enough to grace any Beatrix Potter illustration. But only once...

Fennel does not come easily to me.

Or to anyone, I discover. Early in my veg growing life, I produced two perfect rows of Florence fennel (also called bulb fennel to distinguish it from herb fennel which does not heart up). Both from seed and both beautiful enough to grace any Beatrix Potter illustration, and feasted on them with the naivety of a young rabbit troughing lettuce, blissfully unaware of how rare an occurrence this would be. Blithely, I sowed again the following year, but nothing happened. Again, I sowed the next year. Still nothing. And thus I awoke to the same realisation it seems all mature veg-growers do eventually: fennel is tricksy.

Why?

It needs everything we are short of in the UK: a long, warm growing season (it is very tender); regular, steady watering but not a deluge; no wind (it is susceptible to wind rock); and, a life unmolested by slugs and snails. Exactly. I buy fennel now.

What I have grown in abundance this year is potatoes.

The allotment didn’t seem complete without them, so, despite my generally rule that growing potatoes is a waste of time, I bunged them in. Why not when you have all that space? In an effort to make the harvest more exciting, I planted Pink Fir Apple, a main crop variety, but a small nubbly one, about the size of a new potato and nutty in flavour, rather like an Anya. And they grew away merrily and without interference from me. Fennel, take note.

Homegrown goodies. Just add fennel.

So too, the apples.

Which have also been abundant this season. Again, I can take no credit, since I have done nothing besides a cursory mulch last autumn.

But fennel is what I want to eat now.

Because it so perfectly suits this shift in the seasons: bright and crunchy enough to grace a slaw for a jumpered lunch in any late sunshine; but bold and silky when roasted to warm a chilly night. Yes, fennel is a must in any seasonal cook’s transitional wardrobe.

So I buy some fennel.

Some is sliced raw for slaw. The rest is roasted with my homegrown potatoes, apples, garlic and oregano in this chicken traybake. Yes, it’s a classic combination. Yes, there’s no more to do than bung it all in a tray in the oven. But the flavours here are plucky and gratifying and not every meal needs to change the world, just gladden your little corner of it.

Fennel and apple chicken traybake

If you can’t find small Pink Fir Apple potatoes or Anyas, use potatoes or another small maincrop potato. And please do choose skin on, bone in chicken thighs; the deboned, skinless variety are so joyless. Serve with a crisp salad and a hunk of bread, if anything.

Serves 2

• 250g pink fir apple potatoes (or whatever you have)

• 2 small fennel bulbs, cut into wedges

• 3-4 chicken thighs, bone in, skin on

• 2 eating apples, cored but not peeled and cut into wedges