Culinaria: JP McMahon on tender is the herb garden

With an Irish spring only a few weeks away (we hope), I’m out in my little herb garden seeing which plants survived the winter.

As much as I’d like to be one, I’m not much of a grower. I usually leave that to others. But I can grow herbs, and I always look forward to planting some for the restaurant that would otherwise be hard to come across: woodruff and anise hyssop are two that come to mind.

I also plant plenty of nasturtiums as we never seem to have enough of them throughout the year. I love their leaves and their flowers for everything.

You can make a wonderful herb butter with the flowers. Just allow your butter to come to room temperature, spread it out on some clingfilm and cover it with flower petals. Then just roll it up into a cylinder.

Three herbs that did survive the winter are looking surprisingly healthy given the cold weather of late. Though I would expect the thyme and rosemary to be still standing, I was taken aback by the hardiness of my bronze fennel. Since its resurrection (my father-in-law tried to kill it, not premeditated though), it has come on in so many leaps and bounds that it often needs restraining. Though who am I to stop the fennel plant killing it’s cousin, Ms Dill.

A word of warning: fennel and dill do not grow well together. They fight too much.

As it’s still cold these days, I want to cook something warm and comforting, so I opt for a barley risotto with a beautiful green fennel puree. After frying onion and garlic in butter, I throw in a few handfuls of barley, followed by some chicken stock. In another pot I warm cream and blend it with fennel.

When the barley has lost its bite, I ladle in the green cream to colour the barley.

Finish the dish with some fresh fennel fronds and a grating of a nice hard cheddar or Parmesan. A little ode to upcoming spring.