Ingredient of the month: fennel

People tend to have a love/hate relationship with fennel. I’ll admit that I used to feel sort of  ‘eh’ about it as well, particularly about the faint licorice/aniseed aftertaste of which I was not a fan.

Well it turns out that fennel? Is great! And seasonal. And is exceptional with some citrus, preferably tangerine or sweet oranges. If you follow S&H, you’ll see that we often cook with fennel. While at Mario Batali’s restaurant Otto in NY, I had a sublime fennel salad that I have since made three times. His used fennel, tangerine and pomegranate seeds.

Here is an easy alternative recipe:

You’ll need:  one bulb of fennel, one medium-sized juicy tangerine, salt, olive oil

• Finely grate or shave the fennel. Get the strips to be thin and not too wide. I actually even like doing this with a peeler if you have a nice sharp one.
• Season it with a pinch of salt and a tiny bit of olive oil.
• Squeeze juice of tangerine over the fennel and mix well.

That’s it – a fantastic and delicate pairing.

We’ve made variations of this, adding the requisite pomegranate seeds or grated carrots to the salad. Those versions were equally successful.

Here are some other fennel recipe ideas for this month:

• Roasted fennel – one of my favorites
• Fennel soup
• Fennel risotto
• Fennel-cucumber salsa (I’m intrigued)
• Baked fennel with parmesan
• Mark Bittman’s (one day late to the fennel party :)!) roast chicken with fennel

Also, did you know that fennel is one of the herbs that’s a primary ingredient in absinthe?