ottawa foodies

OK, I got a crapload of fennel and no idea what to do with it.

Any suggestions?

Worst case I will dehydrate it and make a powder out of it.

Make a rub for pork...make some sausages.

Or lose some weight! www.florapathics.com

It's particularly good with tomatoes, pork, fish (particularly shellfish) and oranges - a bit of an acquired taste as it has a watery licorice/anise taste. Some ideas off the top of my head:

Sauteed slices with grilled Italian-style pork sausages or white fish.
Fish soup - saute diced onions, fennel, garlic, add tomatoes/broth/wine and then white fish, mussels, shrimp, etc. Classic bouillabaisse starts with fennel.
Thinly sliced in salad with oranges, radishes, maybe a super thin red onion and maybe black olives.
Squid salad - grilled squid, diced tomatoes and lightly sauteed fennel.
Roasted in drippings underneath a pork shoulder roast in the oven.
In a tomato-based pasta sauce or minestrone-style soup. Saute at the beginning like celery or onion, add tomatoes and simmer away.
With mussels, saute with onions and garlic before adding liquid (white wine/vermouth) then add mussels to steam.
Directly grilled on BBQ.

I'd say it is culinarily equivalent to celery, but it doesn't match everything from a flavour perspective. I don't see fennel and beef or lamb really going together, but that is just my palate at this stage, it could be a famous combination in some cuisines for all I know.

Thanks Trachino for "culinary equivalent to celery" - that should help. Dang, I should have put some in my stir fry for lunch! I wonder whether the boys might just eat it like celery given the licorice flavour.

quarter the bulb ends and braise in some chicken stock until caramelized. save the fronds to chop and sprinkle over fish.

I use it in tuna salad pretty often. It's also really good in soups as Tracinho stated.

Ooops, for whatever reason I was envisioning fennel seed and not actual fennel. I typically use it in vegetable soup...

I love it as a salad. Shave the fennel bulb (mandoline helps here), a granny smith apple, a vidalia onion. Mix with lots of lemon juice, a little olive oil, salt and white pepper. Add some of the frond as garnish. Chill in the fridge. It tastes even better the next day.

It is also wicked roasted with tomatoes. I roast for 20 mins, then add a nice thick white fish and some good olives, and roast for another 20.

Bobby F: I don't keep fresh fennel in my fridge as a staple so I always have a baggie of fennel seeds (1$ @ Grace) for use in any of the dishes I discussed, plus crushed in porchetta rubs, etc. A splash of Ricard can also do the same trick.

BluB: I have a friend (whose opinion I strongly trust) who sings the praises of celery braised in the same manner you described. It is not something I think to do but I will have to try both fennel and celery like that at some point.

Chop roughly, place in a large shallow dish and put it at the bottom of the garden for the local wildlife to eat the foul stuff. If you want your food to taste like chemicals then cook with chemicals. Same goes for tarragon, anise and anything else anything aniseed flavoured.

Sorry for my completely unhelpful post, I just felt that I had to get it off my chest. ;-)

Yum! You probably all know this already, but it works wonderfully as a (I believe the term is) digestif at the end of a big meal.

A small serving of the salad that Triple H mentioned is fantastic after a filling supper. Your guests will thank you.

If you're anything like me, you probably have a crapload of zucchini kicking around, too, eh?

I made a warm salad out of mine. Roughly 3 parts zucchini to 2 parts fennel.

Slice fennel thin (3mm or so), drizzle with olive oil, cook (either in cast iron on a grill or in a pan on a stove) until nicely browned/charred.

Slice zucchini not-as-thin (7mm or so), do the exact same thing.

Mix together gently, add lemon juice and zest, fresh herbs of your liking (maybe basil, parsley, and oregano), and maybe throw some chipped parmesan in there, too.

Goes great with almost any meat. It's assertively flavoured, so it'll stand up to something strong, but it packs enough layers of flavour to go well with something mild.

I recommend this corn chowder recipe, which contains fennel:
www.epicurious.com
Made it last night -- it's super easy. I'm sure it didn't hurt that I had fresh Hudson's corn to add. The result was delicious. And the fennel isn't overpowering, so don't worry about that!
See what I do for you, Zym? (Eat delicious food!) ALSO: BACON!!!

I put some in a ratatouille last night, sauteed at the beginning with onions, garlic and herbs. Not strictly traditional but it works well with summer vegetables (zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes and red peppers).

My favourite soup:

kitchenography.typepad.com

cook it slowly in a crock pot w/ onions, garlic, & tomatoes.
then you can jar it. would be great w/ any fish , chicken, or noodles.

OK Yessi, gonna try your corn chowder recipe right now ...

So here is what I did with that recipe so far yessi

- took a slab of my own bacon and sliced it - using the fat from it
- 6 or 7 cups of frozen corn kernels (cut from the cob myself last summer)
- 2 cups chopped fennel
- 1.5 cups yellow summer squash (star shaped) - did not have zuke
- 2 small cooking onions (surprised to see none in that recipe linked)
- 2 large red potatoes peeled and cubed
- 4 cups chicken broth that I canned myself 3 years ago
- salt and pepper

followed the procedure given except I pureed the whole thing right in the pot with my hand blender. I may add some more corn kernels afterwards we shall see. Right now it has to boil a bit to thicken. Even after pureeing it, there are still a fair number of very small chunks in it though.

flavour is really good! definitely a winner

I'm holding off on the cream for now - want to keep it as healthy as possible, and it is pretty good without it

EDIT: added 1 large clove garlic

Hand blender would have been, well, handy.
I think that using the conventional blender was dangerous. I had to brace down the top of the blender because of all the steam, while it was doing its mix-y thing.

Your mods look amazing. Good on you. I will have to take a page from your book the next time I make it.

Late response due to new job. Very busy. Oh yeah, this is what working is like.

Good luck with that working thing ... enjoying unemployment at the moment :-)

Yesterday I canned up the last of the corn chowder - got 2 x 500ml jars for consumption at some point in the future.

And already passed the recipe on to my farmer who was looking to use up some corn and fennel :-)