Programme ten In the last episode of French Odyssey, Rick Stein reached the end of his journey. Not one to let melancholy get in the way of a good meal, Rick ended the series on a high with roasted sea bass and bouillabaisse and harvested the famous 'fleur de sel' salt.

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Cooking with fennel Rick Stein's Roasted sea bass with fennel

Recipes from French Odyssey Details of Rick's journey

Programme ten

Rick's enviable culinary journey along the waterways of southern France finished in Marseilles where he indulged in the most famous French seafood dish of all, bouillabaisse.

Along the way to Marseilles, Rick stopped off to watch the harvesting of fleur de sel, so named because of the aroma of violets as the salt dries. He used it in his dish of barbecued black bream Provencal. Fennel herb and Camargue rice made the perfect accompaniment to his roasted sea bass and a tucked-away seafood restaurant turned out to be a real treasure.

A look back at his journey showed how many dishes he'd managed to get through and led him to proclaim that 'French food is alive and extremely well'!

Rick used fennel herb in his recipe for roasted sea bass and said: "Sea bass always tastes brilliant roasted with fennel herb." There are two main types of this aromatic plant - the vegetable and the herb. Both have pale green, celery-like stems and bright green, feathery foliage.

Florence fennel, also called finocchio or Italian fennel, has a broad, bulbous base with a mild aniseed flavour and is treated like a vegetable. Both the base and stems can be eaten raw in salads or cooked by braising or roasting. The herb has greenish-brown seeds and feathery green leaves, both of which have a strong aniseed flavour that complements fish, especially oily varieties such as mackerel and herring or, as in this recipe, sea bass.

The addition of pastis, a French aniseed-flavoured aperitif, enhances the fennel flavour in a recipe and is popular in fish dishes.

Rick Stein said: "The part of the dish that really enthused me was the little mould of Camargue rice cooked with some local olive oil. Somewhat irritatingly, the only Camargue rice you can buy in Britain is red - it is actually just brown rice with a slightly different-coloured husk. But for aficionados in the south of France, they also produce a small-grained rice that’s very similar to risotto rice. This is not really risotto, but a riz pilaf, whose ingredients are rice, water, salt and a lovely olive oil."

• Roasted sea bass with pastis and a Camargue rice

This dish and other recipes cooked by Rick on the programme feature in a book accompanying the series. Rick Stein's French Odyssey is published by BBC Books. RRP £20. ISBN 0563522135.

Here are some other recipes using fennel from BBC Food:

• Grilled sea bass in a clear seafood consomme with poached fennel by Rick Stein
• Chicken breasts with fennel by Michel Roux
• Crab and fennel tagliatelle by Ben O'Donoghue
• Fennel chocolate cake by James Martin

And try this bouillabaisse recipe from BBC Food:

• Bouillabaisse by Antony Worrall Thompson

Not all the Rick Stein recipes featured on the programme are available on the website owing to copyright issues. However the recipes cooked by Rick on the programme feature in a book accompanying the series, Rick Stein's French Odyssey, published by BBC Books. RRP £20. ISBN 0563522135.

You can trace Rick's journey through southern France on his website, which features an interactive map and directory of the places he visited.