I’ve been exploring the use of dried fennel seeds lately, it’s a licorice flavor spice so it is rather hard to find a good use for it. Unless you wanna make something taste licorice that is 🙂 It has to be used with caution to just give that little vague extra touch that is hard to pin down.

So far I think I’ve been a little too cautious though, but I will get it right eventually.

Today I made whole sirloin (that’s what I think the part is called in English at least). I used black pepper, salt, fennel seeds and dried chervil to season the meat before putting it in the oven on low temperature (125 degrees Celsius).

When the inner temperature of the meat reached a little over 85 degrees Celsius it was done. Turned out lovely, and the “stock” that had formed in the bottom of the pan was full of flavour, perfect as a base for sauce, or to be used as is. I served it with potatoes au gratin, but I guess other variations of potato dishes will work well also.

I guess you’d like to know what amounts of spices I used as well 🙂 I used about 15 whole black peppers, roughly half a teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of chervil and around 10 fennel seeds. I crushed all the spices in a mortar to a rather fine powder and covered the meat with the spice mix. It won’t be a thick layer, just enough to rub it around the meat. The measurements aren’t exact as I didn’t check the amounts while doing it, they are just estimations.