One of the reasons I love ethnic groceries: great fresh produce at great prices. On Sunday I picked up two bulbs of Florence fennel for a buck at North Park Produce. Today I did my favorite super-simple thing to do with them: trim up the bulbs, slice, salt and pepper them, give 'em a spritz of cooking spray, and roast in a medium oven until the exteriors brown and the inner flesh gets meltingly tender.
I think the tenderest of this stuff would be excellent on bruschetta. I wouldn't know for sure, because I wind up wolfing it down as soon as it's cool enough to eat. Leftovers, if any, are also good cold.
Similar to the celery it faintly resembles, the outermost stalks and the narrow stems are usually too tough and fibrous for pleasant eating cooked this way, though their anise-y sweetness can be fun in a vegetable stock. Some trim the cores out of the bulbs too, but personally I happen to think that's the best part.
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