KUALA LUMPUR, April 13 -- Vegetables can be an afterthought.

Sometimes they feel like a requisite side dish, more of a duty than a pleasure. The main course ought to be the star, you say, the piece de resistance.

Yet I find no reason why vegetables can't have their moment in the limelight. Our parents remind us to eat our greens when we are young; as every passing year has shown, our progenitors are often wiser than we would like to admit.

On this note, I would like to tackle a pair of root vegetables. One is considered plain and mundane, the other too obscure and unlikeable.

I'm talking about carrots and fennel.

Two plants that belong to the same family and, perhaps, similarly been overlooked by hasty home cooks.

If you find run-of...