[food, growth] applications of fennel

[kaberett]

I'm a cliché, I know, but the fennel I have been growing on the plot ('Colossal') is genuinely the nicest I think I've ever had: it's sweet and aromatic and delicious and I am delighted by it, and in addition to the bulbs I'm eating I'm intending to leave some to go to seed so I can grow More next year.

Something I had failed to properly anticipate when sowing it, however, is that fennel fronds are... a thing. A big feathery... thing. On the plot at dusk they almost manage to resemble a tiny forest, and it would be ridiculous to just put all of that straight back in the compost, so I've... been eating it? I've been eating it and working out what on earth to do with it with a certain degree of perplexity.

I also brought a bulb down to Cornwall with me, having stopped off at the allotment to pick up the fabled Phormium tenax, and subsequently have been doing Further Cooking. Adventures in fennel thus far:

• fronds (and some of the leggier bits of stalk) chopped up fine, in leek-and-potato soup
  
• fronds in courgette fritters
  
• fronds in potato salad
  
• fronds in non-potato salad
  
• bulb roasted, in any variety of useful roasted-veg contexts
  
• bulb chopped up fine in risotto (yesssssss)

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

Fronds in butter and added to bread...

[kaberett]

Yes! Yes I had done that bit but forgot, so thank you for the reminder!

[angelofthenorth]

Also use fennel as a bed to flavour things - so we do salmon, but it would work with quorn, tofu or other veggie protein.

Put fennel across bottom of pyrex in thin slices. Layer the protein on top, then cover the bottom with a thin layer of bouillon/veg stock. Cover the whole thing with foil and bake.

[watersword]

I wish I liked fennel, it looks so pretty and fancy and is in so many things that would be delicious except I can't stand that anise-y-licorice-y taste.

[ewt]

Fronds as substitute for basil in pesto. This freezes moderately well.

[ewt]

Fronds in sea salt = fennel salt which is like celery salt but fennel. Can't remember proportions offhand (when I make it with celery I use the leaves, and any tiny stalks from the middle of the bunch).

[ewt]

Candied stalk? I don't see why not.

[aldabra]

Fennel and halloumi kebabs.

[alatefeline]

Nom nom nom nom nom. Sounds tasty.

[untonuggan]

i mean when my mom grew fennel we would just pull a segment of frond right off and like, eat it, because delicious. your uses sound creative and good. but just eating it off the plant is also an option.

[vass]

I think I'll have to try fresh fennel. I've only had the seeds.

I bet it'd be good in curry.

A Frond in Need...

[hairyears]

Use them to flavour a very simple risotto.

[syderia]

The raw bulb, chopped up and tossed with olive oil and sea salt, as a salad, is pretty nice, too.

[madgastronomer]

Hide fire inside one stalk and carry it away from your weird family to give to some species that doesn't know how to make it yet?

No, wait, don't do that, your liver probably doesn't grow back.



I don't have any good ideas, actually, because every time I try to think of one I remember the ridiculous hand gesture my father (who couldn't remember the name of the vegetable he had on a crudite platter at an Italian place) used to try to communicate to me that it was fennel, and how he got madder and madder as I just dissolved into laughter and wouldn't tell him the name even once I figured out what he was talking about.


Um... pesto?

[fyreharper]

I would just like to note that this comment is delightful :D

[madgastronomer]

Oh good. Thanks! Because I was worried it was incoherent.

Usually I have, like, All The Food Suggestions, because I am the Mad Gastronomer, after all, but my brain threw out random stuff like a Catherine wheel and gave up.

I am now wondering about fennel dessert. Like, a panna cotta sweetened with a bit of honey and fennel seed while warming the milk, strain out the seeds, then stir in chopped fronds while it cools.

[kaberett]

It was not incoherent and I Enjoyed it!

I will say that one of the Favourite Foods I've had was goats' cheese, fennel pollen, pistachio, apple purée at Vanilla Black. It was GREAT and one of the things I am Contemplating, now that I have a plausible source of fennel pollen, is Recreating It.

[feanelwa]

I like it with olive tapenade in the rare event I have both in the house at once.

[kaberett]

Ooooh. Note made!

[khronos_keeper]

I vaguely remember eating fennel once-ish and rather liked it, but have since never had luck in sowing it. Such is life in great hemiboreal wasteland. I want to try again this year, and I am going to take some of the recipes you listed!

[kaberett]

Ha. Good luck! <3

[ewt]

Fennel and orange salad, especially while the blood oranges are in season...

But that made me think -- why not fennel and orange sorbet?