Albacore with Fennel Pollen and Salad

Thursday 24 July

Weirdly enough, Kroger has been having sales on albacore tuna steaks.  We got some as a medium to show off a product of our garden: our fennel plants resprouted after the winter, didn't bulb, and then flowered, so the only use we see for them is to provide the most fashionable and recondite new ingredient, fennel pollen. 

We cut eight or ten flower heads, and shook them to get the little yellow pollen dots loose.  In fact, we took some of the flower buds as well, as they had a good spicy kick.

We then grilled the tuna steaks to just rare on our grill pan, and showered them with the pollen.  We also tossed together a salad with garden lettuces, tomatoes, olives, and baby squashlets to go on the side.

So could we taste the pollen?  No, not really.  It might be that we collected it wrong, but it was disappearingly subtle, even on top of the subtle tuna.  But there are still fennel flowers out in the garden, so we'll try a different way of doing it soon.