Last night I did a Halibut Provincial (I'm sure I'm spelling that wrong) soup. It was sublime. I chose it because, as I've written before, I wan to work with fish more, but also because it uses fennel bulb, which I've been wanting to work with for a while now.

Fennel is a fascinating plant, distantly related to onions, I believe. I think it is unique in the vegetation world because it produces a spice (fennel seeds), an herb (fennel frond) and a vegetable (the bulb or root). I've used the seeds in pasta sauce for years, but this was the first time I've worked with the bulb. I sweated the chopped bulb with a chopped onion and the smell was amazing.

Add some garlic (alright, a lot of garlic), salt, pepper, rosemary and thyme, vegetable broth and of course the fish.

The soup came out with a buttery quality, despite the complete absense of butter. It's a soup miracle!

And the herbs worked well, but a bit more spice is called for, and more salt to bring out the other flavors.

I'll definitly be making this again, though not often, as halibut is expensive around here.

Dessert was a Pepper Vodka Mango Sorbet from Alton Brown, made with fake sugar to keep it inkeeping with the healthyness of Sunday dinners.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of my Steak & Potatoes epic sometime this week.

PS; We got a deep fryer on sale yesterday. This week will be fun.