Bronze Fennel, Apple and Elderflower Infused Cucumber, Feta

This dish is inspired by having spent a lot of time at my parents house recently and seeing some of the fantastic produce they have growing in the garden. I was really excited to make something with these great ingredients and so I’ve tried to come up with something beautiful and simple. The dish is just a couple of elements but to me it is my parents garden at this time of year on a plate.

I loved the shapes and look of the bronze fennel leaves and their natural taste, so I did nothing to these except for pick the tips at random. The leaves have a slightly sweet anise flavour, almost like liquorice.

I decided to pair the fennel with elderflower that was growing near by and then also apple, which goes beautifully with both fennel and elderflower.

I prepared a sweet and aromatic infusion of apple and elderflower, with a hit of calvados and vacuum infused (see bellow) cucumber with this liquid. The vacuum infused cucumber has a really interesting texture and a translucency that makes it look like gellee once it’s been cut to small 2mm cubes.

Vacuum infusing the cucumber with apple elderflower is my play on the idea of the dish as a salad. I also used tiny cubes of feta give a nice salty and sharp touch.

I loved playing with idea of presenting the dish in a way that contrasted the beautiful natural and spiky shape of the fennel leaves with the geometric shapes I cut the feta and infused cucumber into.

Then the dish is finished with some of the beautiful purple elderflowers and with a small sprinkle of Himalayan Pink Salt over the whole dish, this helps all the flavours pop and its unique rose colour suits this dish perfectly aswell as adding a hint of crunch.



Apple and Elderflower Vacuum Infused Cucumbers

Apple and Elderflower Liquid -

200g Calvados
400g Apple Juice
4 Tablespoons Dried Elderflower
75g Caster Sugar
Zest of one lemon
Juice of one lemon

Heat all the ingredients except the lemon juice in a pan and bring to a simmer. Allow to gently simmer, occasionally stirring, for 15 minutes.

Set the pan to one side to allow the liquid to slowly cool.

Then strain and add the lemon juice.

Chill in the fridge until needed

Cucumber Infusion –

Most of us aren’t lucky enough to own a chamber vacuum machine at home so here I used a used a ‘vacuvin’ coffee saver to vacuum infuse my cucumber.



You can do this infusion at home using either a vacuum coffee saver like I did or with either a vacuvin winesaver or even a large syringe. (Although you can only do small amounts at a time in the syringe).

You can get more information on these infusion techniques by reading Dave Arnolds post here

So first off I cut thin (a couple of millimetre thick) strips of cucumber flesh.

Place the cucumber strips in the vacuvin tub. Pour over all of the chilled apple and elderflower liquid to cover the cucumber well. I then used the mesh from an old sieve that just fitted the tub to keep the cucumbers submerged during the infusion.

Now pump out the air as directed in the vacuvin instructions until you have a vacuum. You should see air bubbling out of the cucumber strips.

Hold the vacuum for a minute, then quickly allow the air back in, this will force liquid into the space left from removing the air from the cucumber

You may need to repeat this process – I got my best results by infusing twice.

Once infused the cucumber will turn translucent. You then just need to cut the cucumber into small 2mm cubes.

Feta

Simply cut good quality feta to the same 2mm cubes as the cucumber

To Plate Up

I simply placed a few springs of the bronze fennel around the plate. Then placed cucumber and feta cubes all around the plate and finished off the dish with a sprinkling of fresh elderflowers and a pinch of Himalayan Pink Salt.