Agnello al finocchio

Hrm.... Once again, I'm late on posting the recipe for my own blog event.... Probably not too bad, though: so far I didn't receive any submissions! I guess fennel is not in season in many parts of the world. So, this is a good occasion to send out a reminder to anybody who could be interested in participating.
You can find the rules for submission here. And, the deadline is now officially extended till April 25!

So here is the fennel-centered dish that I made tonight. I thought about the pairing of lamb and fennel after reading a few online recipes on cooker.net, and I decided to add some spices to the dish to make it curry-like. It turned out quite good. I wonder if there are any real Indian curries using fennel as a vegetable.

Curry di agnello e finocchio / Fennel and lamb curry
Ingredients
One onion
Three cloves of garlic
Two fennels
One pound lamb, cubed
Half a pound small tomatoes (romanitas)
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
1/2 tsp fennel seeds
1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds
1/2 tsp garam masala powder
4 dried spicy chili peppers, cut into pieces
Salt
Pepper

Prepare the ingredients: finely mince the onion, the garlic, cut the white bulb of the fennels in thin slices, separate and finely cut the stems and the leaves, and cut the tomatoes in quarters or halves depending on the size. Dry roast the spices, except for the garam masala powder. Grind them.
Sautee the onion in abundant olive oil and add the ground spices. Add the pieces of lamb and brown, about 7 minutes. Remove the meat from the pan, and add the fennel slices and some salt. Sautee the slices for about 7 minutes, stirring frequently to coat with the oil, onion and spice mixture. Remove from the pan and add the rest of the pieces of the fennel and the tomatoes. Cook for 3 minutes and place the meat back in the pan. Cook for 5 more minutes, add garam masala powder, and salt and pepper to taste. If your pan is large enough, stir in the fennel slices, otherwise assemble the dish by placing the fennel slices and the meat, fennel and tomatoes mixture directly in serving bowls, over some boiled basmati rice.

If you try it, let me know what you think about it. I thought it was quite nice, even though I never had a curry containing fennel.