Fennel’s Revenge
For this dish on the current tasting menu at Anomaly SF in San Francisco, executive chef and owner Mike Lanham prepares fennel in three different ways.
He sautés it and dresses it in lime vinaigrette and finger lime and layers it with puffed rice made by cooking it, dehydrating it, frying it until it puffs, and then browning it in garlic butter. It’s dressed in a pesto-like sauce of dill, garlic, lemon zest, and sunflower seeds that he suspends in a Parmesan gel.
Next he compresses fennel with basil and lime. Separately he dehydrates a fennel frond and grinds it into a powder. The compressed fennel is placed on the sautéed fennel and dusted with the powder. The dish is finished with a bright green consommé made with basil stems, a little sugar, salt, and citric acid, and drops of basil oil.
The dish is a successor to a previous dish called Fennel! Fennel! Fennel! That was in turn a response to an inaccurate Yelp review that said fennel appeared on too many places on the menu (in fact, the critic confused fennel with tarragon and star anise, because Yelp).
Price: Part of the $139 11-course tasting menu