Pani puri with braised fennel and smoked olive oil mayonnaise
You can make the fennel and the pani puri for this festive yet elegant amuse in advance, they don’t need to be warm.
Equipment
- 2 piping bags
- paper towel
- wok
Ingredients
- ½ a fennel
- 1 sweet onion
- thyme
- fennel seeds
- 8 mini pani puri (but make a few spare ones)
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise
- 1 tbsp smoked olive oil mayonnaise
- olive oil
- 10 gr butter
- 1 liter sunflower oil
- cress
- gold dust
- salt & pepper
Instructions
Fennel
- Cut the stems off and the (hard) heart out of the fennel and cut the rest in very small pieces. Peel the onion and cut in very small pieces as well (as small as you can).
- Put some (good quality) olive oil in a pan and bake the fennel and onion on medium heat for 1 minute and then turn the heat low.
- Crush a clove of garlic and add them to the fennel. Add some fennel seeds, thyme and some salt and pepper as well. Keep on low heat for three minutes while stirring occasionally.
- Then add a dash of white balsamic vinegar. Let it reduce while stirring.
- Then add 10 gr of butter.
- Put a lid on the pan and let it braise for 15-20 minutes.
Pani puri
- Meanwhile, put a liter of sunflower oil in a wok pan and put it on high heat.
- When sufficiently hot, put in the pani puri one by one (or a few at a time if you're comfortable), each time when they come to the surface, use a frying scoop to turn them around a bit until golden on all sides, then take them out using the frying scoop and put them on a piece of paper towel.
Putting together the amuses
- Use a sharp knife to cut the top off each Pani puri.
- Put the two types of mayonnaise in two piping bags.
- Put some normal mayonnaise in each Pani puri.
- Spoon some braised fennel on top of it.
- Then put a little bit of the smoked mayonnaise on top of the fennel (not too much, for it not to overpower everything else).
- Sprinkle some gold dust on top if the occasion or time of year calls for it.
- finish with a cress.
- Put a little bit of (normal) mayonnaise on each plate to put the Pani puri on top of it, to make sure it doesn't roll over while serving.
