Lemony salmon and fennel pasta

In spite of the garlic, chilli and ginger-laden pre-emptive attacks on the nasty flus that winter (or, this strange excuse of it!) always brings with it, even taco soup and laksa are nnot always to keep those germs at bay. As I was slowly dying of bronchitis a while back I, for the first time maybe ever noticed I didn't even have an appetite. But one has to eat. Sure I could have ordered pizza but you think a food blogger's professional pride lets her resort to that kind of measures? 

Luckily my fridge was (almost) as well stocked as my medicine cabinet and I managed to scrape the ingredients for this pasta whose journey to my plate took less time than the pizza delivery guy's journey to my door.

In normal circumstances I would have probably used cold-smoked salmon which goes so well with fennel  (as fennel soup so gloriously demonstrated). Unfortunately my fridge wasn't that well stocked so I had to make do with regular salmon. Since fennel's own flavour is so subtle (and my palate was off) I also used some fennel seeds. Instead of dill you could also use mint or parsley. White wine could be substituted with lemon juice.

Serves two

2 portions of pasta (linguine, spaghetti, bucatini)

1 large fennel

300 g chunk of salmon

1 dl white wine

generous 1 dl cream (or Turkish yoghurt)

75 g peas

salt, pepper

1 tsp fennel seeds

the grated zest of 1 lemon

handful of chopped spring onions

dill

Cook pasta according to the instructions on the packet and in the meanwhile make the sauce.

Peel fennel's outer skin and remove the hard core. Slice finely and sauté in butter for a few minutes. Then add white wine, continue cooking for a couple of more minutes and pour in cream. Stir and add peas and the salmon, cut into 1/2 cm strips. Continue cooking until salmon is almost done. Crush the fennel seeds and sprinkle into the sauce. Season and fold in drained pasta (reserve some cooking liquid to add into the sauce if needed). Toss in spring onions and dill.

But just looking at that photo makes it painfully clear: in this hemisphere there's no point of even dreaming about fotographing food after 1pm. So, either I'm going to have to limit all cooking to noon or invest in one of those daylight LEDs. Do you guys have any experience of those? Where have you bought yours? Are the significant differences between different brands?


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ANYONE FOR SECONDS?