Tag: Fennel

Kohlrabi, Fennel, Celeriac and Daikon make a good salad (and other recipes)

Not a bad salad.

In season are celeriac, kohlrabi, fennel and daikon. Mint and parsley, red onion, no worries. Radicchio and rocket, seem to be around always. Daikon is not an Italian vegetable but in this case it goes.

To cut  the root vegetables I used my Borner Original V–Slicer that I have had for over 30 years. The blades are still sharp. Shredding the vegetables can make a difference – easier to eat, quicker to cut, good on the eye and the  small batons accept a greater amount of dressing…. If you want it.

A much better looking and tasting salad with some colour!  A combination of flavours – sharp, bitter, sour, fresh and mustard.

On this occasion to dress the salad, I began with a vinaigrette made with extra virgin oil, salt, a little vinegar and lemon juice and then topped it with some egg mayonnaise.

Using just mayonnaise would have made the salad heavy.

Below, celeriac and kohlrabi to the left.

Recipes with kohlrabi:

A WET PASTA DISH WITH KOHLRABI

KOHLRABI and TENERUMI, shared between cultures of Sicily and Vietnam

KOHLRABI with pasta (Causunnedda )

Celeriac:

SEDANO RAPA (Celeriac and how to eat it)

Fennel:

STUFFED BAKED FENNEL WITH PANGRATTATO – FINOCCHI RIPIENI

FENNEL CAPONATA (Sicilian sweet and sour method for preparing certain vegetables).

FENNEL; male and female shapes

Mayonnaise:

PESCE IN BIANCO (Plain fish). MAIONESE (Mayonnaise)

ITALIAN RUSSIAN SALAD, no beetroot

VITELLO TONNATO

 

VONGOLE con FINOCCHIO e Vermouth

B1D5EC2C-3A7E-487F-A229-600CA75EE764Cockles, vongole , pipis from Goolwa.

02D5AEFE-17A9-4E7F-95F2-D86DCA11F397Fennel sautéed in extra virgin olive oil, garlic, tarragon and parsley. Deglazed with dry vermouth.

FE637EF8-8A6C-4CFD-B88D-8B0DF6D14833Add the vongole, cover, and the vongole will open very quickly. Open and serve with crostini…..bread of your choice brushed with extra virgin olive oil and toasted in the oven.

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MUSSELS (Cozze) IN BRODETTO (Mussels in a little broth)

IMG_2797It turned out rather well and we ate it with oven toasted bread rubbed and baked with extra virgin olive oil and garlic.

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There were four separate components:

  • a tomato salsa – extra virgin olive oil, fresh garlic cloves, fresh oregano and a little rosemary,
  • steamed mussels (cozze), most taken out of their shells…. a little white wine and a little fish stock,

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  • a soffritto of celery, chopped fennel, spring onions and baby carrots,

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  • chopped herbs – fennel fronds and parsley.

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All assembled at the end to make this:

IMG_2797 Was it Italian regional?

I do not know. I used Italian methods and ingredients and I guess that it could have been made in any part of Italy. Maybe in the South a little chilli would be added.

And we liked it.

STUFFED BAKED FENNEL WITH PANGRATTATO – FINOCCHI RIPIENI

Breadcrumbs are called Pangrattato (grated bread) in Italian.

Mollica is the soft part of the bread with crusts removed but in the culinary world both pangrattato and mollica have acquired new significances and have been enhanced. Both refer to breadcrumbs lightly toasted in in olive oil, herbs and seasonings and variations include anything from garlic, red pepper flakes, pine nuts, anchovies, lemon zest , cinnamon or nutmeg, salt and a little sugar.

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Mollica or pangrattato adds texture, fragrance and complex flavours and is usually used as a stuffing or topping, especially for pasta in Calabria, Puglia and Sicily. For example,  Pasta con le Sarde and Sarde a Beccafico are two Sicilian recipes that use enhanced breadcrumbs:

When I make pangrattato I store left overs in a jar in my fridge and use it to enhance other dishes: this time I used it to stuff fennel. For moisture and extra flavour I added  a little ricotta and a little grated cheese – pecorino or parmigiano.

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Cut the stems off the fennel and remove the toughest and usually damaged outer leaves Cut the fennel into quarters.

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Cook the fennel in salted water, bay leaves salt and lemon juice for about 10 minutes until it is slightly softened. Remove it from the liquid and cool.

Make the filling: Work the ricotta in a bowl with a fork, mix in the pangrattato and grated cheese.

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Prise open the leaves of the fennel and stuff with the pangrattato stuffing.

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Place the quarters into a baking bowl that allows them to stay compact and upright (like when you are cooking stuffed artichokes).

Drizzle olive oil on top (or a little butter) and bake at 180 – 190°C for about 15 minutes

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SPAGHETTI with PRAWNS and ZUCCHINI

SPAGHETTI with ‘NDUJA, SQUID, VONGOLE AND PAN GRATTATO

PASTA CON LE SARDE – an iconic Sicilian recipe from Palermo. Cooked at Slow Food Festival Melbourne

PASTA CON SARDE – the baked version, Palermo, Sicily

SARDE A BECCAFICO (Sardines stuffed with currants, pine nuts, sugar and nutmeg)

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FISH STUDDED WITH SICILIAN FLAVOURS

As you can see this fish steak is cut vertically from a largish sized fish  and it is the perfect size to stud the four different sections with  different flavours.  On this occasion I used fennel, cloves, garlic and mint. I vary the flavours and I may use rosemary, a bit of cinnamon stick or lemon peel.

I was pleased and surprised to find that the Trevally had been cut into steaks because it is usually only available whole or as fillets. It is pleasing to see that there is a growing awareness that fish, like meat, can be partitioned into different cuts that lend themselves to different styles of cooking. Silver Trevally is also called White Trevally and has a firm, dense texture when cooked. It benefits from  a little liquid to deglaze it after it has been seared and can taste dry if it is overcooked.

I used a combination of white wine and Sicilian Marsala Fine – semisecco (semi dry). At other times I have used just white wine or fresh orange juice (with a little grated peel) or dry vermouth. I like to use dry vermouth particularly when I use tarragon – this is not a Southern Italian or Sicilian herb but it is used in the North and known as dragoncello -little dragon. Sage (salvia) is also good to use, but once again it is not widely used in Sicilian cooking.

Silver Trevally is fished in estuaries and coastal waters of southern Australian states and most of the Australian commercial catch is taken in NSW and eastern Victoria.

Other fish I have studded with flavours has been wild caught Barramundi shoulders

and Albacore tuna.

Not much detail is needed in this recipe – the photos tell the story.

Use a thin, sharp knife with a long blade and make slits into four sections of the slice of fish.  
Insert into each split half a clove of garlic and three other different flavours. Select from:  fennel, cloves, mint, sage, rosemary, a bit of cinnamon stick or lemon peel. .
Heat some extra virgin olive oil in a  frying pan that can accommodate the fish in one layer.
Sprinkle the fish with salt and pepper. Sauté the fish, turn once (until it colours).
Add Marsala and white wine (about 1/2 cup) and evaporate the liquid leaving the fish in the pan.
 
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Above  – One Fish, One Chef, presentation by Josh Niland, and part of Melbourne Good Food Month. Josh butchered a large fish, head to tail  – that is correct, almost every part of the fish, innards as well are edible. (Mr Niland, Fish Butchery) 
 
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A bit of fish butchery at a fish market in Sicily where butchery has been going on for  centuries.
 
Swordfish display in LxRm5

MUSSELS WITH CHICKPEAS

I love mussels: they are just so quick to cook, sustainable, economical and so flavourful. By using different herbs and adding a variety of ingredients you can vary the looks and taste of mussels and have a new dish every time. Mussels are called cozze in Italian.

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Mussels or vongole (pipis or cockles) cooked with pulses (usually chickpeas or cannellini or lima beans) feature in many cuisines – Italian, Moroccan, French, Spanish and Greek and there are likely to be more examples. Each cuisine may have a few variations: as an Italian I use parsley, the French recipes may suggest using thyme, Moroccans may add harissa and the Spaniards may add chorizo. Fennel is in season and its aniseed, liquorice -like flavour compliments the taste of any seafood.

I also like to accentuate the taste of the fennel by adding 1 teaspoon of fennel seeds or instead of the wine, using one of the anise flavoured alcoholic drinks, like Ricard, Pastis or Pernod (French) or Raki (Turkey). Ouzo (Greek) and Sambuca (Italian) are sweeter in taste (contain sugar) so unless you particularly like sweetness do not use too much. I have mentioned the most popular of the alcoholic beverages, but there are more in other countries.

I use a lot of wine or alcohol in my cooking but this is not compulsory. I do not use salt when I cook mussels as they release their own liquid and this is usually sufficiently salty.

1 k mussels, scrubbed and beards removed
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 cup white wine or ½ cup of anise flavoured alcohol and ½ cup of water or if you have cooked the chickpeas yourself, use the liquid
1 bulb fennel or 3 stalks of young celery
½ cup chopped fresh parsley
2-3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 cups of cooked chickpeas (home cooked or canned)
pepper or chilli flakes
 
Prepare the fennel: remove the tough outer leaves, slice the fennel and chop finely any of the fronds. Because I prefer to have some crunch in the fennel I slice it into medium -thin slices, but if you prefer it to be soft, slice it very thinly. Substitute the fennel with celery if you prefer.
Use a heavy bottomed large saucepan with a tight fitting lid, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil and sauté the garlic, sliced fennel and fennel fronds.
Add chickpeas, parsley, pepper or chilli flakes to taste and 1 cup of liquid – either wine or anise flavoured alcohol and water – and bring to the boil.
Add mussels, cover and cook until they open.
Serve with the broth. Drizzle some extra virgin olive oil on top. Use bread to mop up the juices.

WILD ASPARAGUS IN SICILY AND TUNIS (ASPARAGI SELVATICI)

Found this bunch of wild asparagus at Marché Central de Tunis and was very excited. I have eaten wild asparagus in Sicily but only on a few occasions because I have not always visited Sicily in spring. It is a spring vegetable and obviously the wild asparagus is appreciated in Tunis as well. Wild asparagus all over Sicily.

Next in Sicily and we found plants on our climb up La Rocca in Cefalu.

We then found plants growing in the garden at our B&B in Cefalu and took photos of the two types of plants which produce the wild asparagus shoots; although they are coming to the end of their season these plants had shoots.

To our delight we ate some where we stayed in the Agruturismo in the Madonie Mountains. It was cooked in a frittata and the shoots appeared again in a pasta dish with sausages made from the special, breed of pork only found in the Madonie and the Nebrodi mountains.(Slow Food)

For those of you who have  not eaten wild asparagus:
The shoots taste slightly bitter. They are the shoots of a very stubborn plant with sharp and needle-like leaves and the asparagus are difficult to pick.

You need to wash the shoots well, snap any of the woody ends just to the point at which the stalk bends and discard the very woody bottom. Cook the top part of the asparagus stalks in salted water and then use in the frittata or as an ingredient in the pasta. If they are not woody their tender tips are great raw.

I dressed Tunis asparagus with olive oil and lemon juice.

There was also much fennel around in Tunis and braised some in a little butter and a dash of red wine vinegar. It is not necessarily the way I normally cook it but one makes do when one is away and staying in an apartment and it did taste good.

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FENNEL CAPONATA (Sicilian sweet and sour method for preparing certain vegetables).

Fennel is still looking really good at the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne.

Select the round specimens when you can – these are known as the male bulbs. The female ones are flatter and reputed to be not as tasty because their energy is going into sprouting and going to seed – this is why they are not as round.

Usually when I make caponata I fry the vegetables separately to best preserve the flavour of the individual vegetables and accommodate the different cooking time each vegetable needs, but because the celery and fennel have similar textures I  generally cook them at the same time.

All caponate (plural) have an essential agro-dolce (sweet and sour) sauce that makes caponata what it is.

INGREDIENTS
1 medium sized fennel
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 tender celery stalk and some pale green leaves, finely chopped
¼ cup green olives, pitted and sliced
¼ cup capers (if salted, rinsed and soaked)
1 ripe tomato, peeled and chopped (or canned)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbs wine vinegar, white
salt and pepper to taste

PROCESSES
Prepare the fennel:
Remove any outer layers of the fennel that look damaged, trim the base and discard.  Keep any young, soft fennel fronds to add to the caponata.
Slice the fennel bulbs in half vertically and then into quarters. Continue to cut the fennel into thin slices keeping them attached at the bottom.
Place extra virgin olive oil in the pan and when it is hot add the onion, fennel and celery and sauté until they begin to colour.
Add the olives, capers, tomato and salt. Cover and simmer gently until the fennel has softened (10-15 mins).
Remove the contents from the pan, add sugar to the same pan and stir over medium heat, When it begins to caramelize add the vinegar and evaporate. This is the essential agro-dolce (sweet and sour) sauce.
Return all the contents back into the pan and stir through.

Caponata is presented cold.

Other Fennel Recipes:

Fennel – male and female shapes

Tortino di finocchi (fennel flan)

Fennel and orange salad

Fennel and Potato soup

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FENNEL AND ORANGE SALAD (Insalata di Finocchio e Arancia Sanguina)

Blood oranges are very much in vogue. A few years ago I could only buy them from a couple of stalls at the Queen Victoria Market but now they appear to be quite common.

Fennel bulbs have also become less exotic and this vegetable and above fruit combined make a great salad; both this vegetable and citrus fruit have been around for a very long time in Sicily.
I am not shy about presenting a salad as a side for a hot or cold main, but I always provide each guest with a separate plate for this contorno.
INGREDIENTS
fennel bulbs, 2 medium-sized (400- 500g approx.)
extra-virgin olive oil, ½ cup 
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
blood oranges, 2-3
parsley, ½ cup finely cut  
PROCESSES
Remove any outer layers of the fennel which look damaged, trim the base and top and discard.  Keep any young, soft fennel fronds to add to the salad. Slice the fennel bulbs in half vertically and then continue to cut the fennels into thin slices.
Cut off the peel and pith of the oranges (use a sharp knife) then slice the orange crosswise into thin slices.
Combine the oranges with the fennel.
Mix olive oil, salt and pepper in a container and dress the salad.

Although fennel bulbs may look similar in shape there are two differently shaped bulbs and each is identified by its sex – the round are known as the maschi (the male fennel) and the slightly flattened shapes are the femmine (females).
See post : Fennel – Male and female shapes

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CHICKPEAS SOUP WITH WILD FENNEL (Minestra di ceci con finocchio, erba selvatica)

Many associate eating soups mostly in winter, but this is not the case in my household. Although the soups I prepare in summer may not be as hearty as my winter ones, they will often contain pulses.

I enjoy eating chickpeas, borlotti, cannellini beans or lentils in soups but I also enjoy them as salads.

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And this is what brings me (yet again) to writing about wild fennel – I find a bowl of any of the above pulses presented in their broth and flavoured with wild fennel very refreshing. The extra virgin olive oil drizzled on top of the soup when it is presented to the table, makes the soup even more aromatic.

I never eat soup piping hot (Australia inherited this custom from the English) and in summer I present my soup cooler still.

This wild fennel plant and several other large bushes of wild fennel grow not very far from where I live, (in the centre of Melbourne). And this is where I do a little foraging. These plants are very robust and persistent and supply me with either foliage or seeds during the year (I know I need to be very careful about not picking plants that have been sprayed).

There are no seeds on this plant yet, but as the weather gets hotter there will be bright yellow flower heads which then will turn into dry, hard, brown seeds in late summer – I will be back to collect these and together with some dry oregano, chilli flakes and extra virgin olive oil, I will marinate this year’s black olives which are still in their brine.

The softer, younger foliage is also excellent used as a herb, raw in salads or when cooking fish.

Unlike the commercial bulb fennel, wild fennel does not have a bulb – the young shoots are used. In the photo below you can see the shoots within the larger foliage – they are the denser looking part of the two sprigs below; usually they are a lighter colour. When I collect the fennel, to keep the young shoots fresh I also collect the larger stem, where they are embedded. I find the stalks and the more mature, green fronds too tough to eat and the flavour too intense.

It is necessary to soak the beans (or chickpeas) overnight, and although it is said that the lentils will not need soaking, I like to soak them for about an hour beforehand. Some cooks discard the soaking water – it is a common belief that changing the water will help to reduce the flatulence suffered when eating pulses. Also reputed to help is the addition of a pinch of fennel seeds (other countries use dill and caraway) therefore adding fresh fennel to this soup should function in the same way.

For this soup, I am using chickpeas.

INGREDIENTS
chickpeas, 400g
carrots, 2, left whole
garlic, 2- 3 cloves, squashed
wild fennel, 3-5 young shoots, left whole
salt, to taste
extra virgin olive oil, ½ cup (or more to taste)
PROCESSES
Soak chickpeas in cold water overnight – they will swell so it is important to put them in plenty of water.
Drain the water and change it (optional) Place sufficient water to cover the pulses and add carrots, a little extra virgin olive oil, garlic cloves and fennel (this will be the broth).
Bring the pulses to the boil. Cook the pulses until soft but preferably still whole. If using lentils they will cook quickly, but the other pulses may take 20– 30 mins. Add salt to taste.
Remove the carrot and some of the fennel. Cut up the fennel that you choose to eat and return it to the soup. Cool to desired temperature.
Ladle into bowls. Add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and serve.
Other recipes using wild fennel can be found in previous posts.
See

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