Kitchen Garden Recipes: Fennel

Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is not something I'd had much experience with either in my garden or my kitchen until a few years ago.  Although I have always been a fan of licorice, it was hard for me to conceive of a way to use an herb that has a mild anise flavor reminiscent of licorice candy in savory cooking.  And since I'm allergic to seafood, one of the more common pairings with this herb, it just never made my top twenty herb list.  On the rare occasions when I needed fennel seed for a recipe, I used seed that I purchased in small amounts at a local specialty foods market.

Several years ago we added the Copper Leaf variety of  it to our herb garden - more for it's beautiful foliage than for any plans to actually use it in cooking - but it never performed well, and when it failed to sprout one spring after having struggled for several years, we didn't replant.  

Fennel bulbs - in the supermarket the roots are removed.

I'd seen fennel bulbs in the supermarket and had watched Chef Ann Burrell prepare it on television. But I still struggled with the idea of a licorice-flavored vegetable as a side dish.  I had little interest in working with fennel as a vegetable until we received several large bulbs in our organic vegetable farm share.  After researching ways to prepare it, I combined several suggestions from other chefs into my own personal version of caramelized fennel.  Overnight I became a fennel devotee, as did everyone in the family after I served this wonderful vegetable as a side dish.

Learning to properly cut fennel was Job One.  The instructions I found ran the gamut from using the entire bulb and lower portions of the stalk to cutting out the core of the bulb and using only the "best" part of the plant.  I read several articles that suggested the stalks and core could be tough and opted to go with a more drastic approach to the bulb.

Fennel from the farm came with the root still attached.  We had had a cold and rainy summer so when it was harvested, the bulbs were smaller than what I'd seen at the local market.  

The first time I prepared it, I used only the bulbs in the farm share. I was experimenting and didn't know how much cooked vegetable they would yield, nor how receptive my usually vegetable-avoidant husband and son would be to this new addition to our menu. 

I was not prepared for how warmly received this "new" (to us) vegetable was.  When I prepared it again, I added store-bought bulbs to those we received with our farm share.

Cutting the fennel requires a very sharp knife.  I personally favor a boning knife that I sharpen with each use.  It allows me to easily carve out the core at the base of the bulb, trim stalks, and slice the bulb.

The first thing I generally do is cut off the stalks and roots.  I reserve some of the best branches of the fine, feathery foliage to add to the bulb during cooking.  

The core can comprise a large portion of a small bulb so choose the widest ones available

Next, I trim the sides where the stalks were cut close to the bulb.  I've tried it both ways and find the stalks to be tough and not as flavorful and sweet as the bulb.  If I've left a stub of the stalk, I trim it away.

Once I've trimmed the sides, I remove any significantly damaged or discolored outer layers.  Older bulbs may show some rust along the edges of the layers.  You can this in the bulbs in the above photograph.  This can be sliced away;  it usually only requires removing a very shallow sliver of the edge of that layer. Then I rinse the bulb in cold water just to remove any dirt that might still be present and to clean it before slicing and cooking.

Once the bulb is trimmed, clean, and ready to be sliced, I cut the bulbs in half through the middle from front to back (the long way) to expose the core.

Bulbs trimmed and cored and ready to be sliced.

The core is removed by cutting a V-shaped wedge along it's length to remove the innermost part of it.  It's not necessary to remove the entire core.  I leave enough to hold the bulb intact and make it easier to slice the bulb into thin strips for cooking.

Although many cooking sources say that it can be left intact and sliced and cooked with the rest of the bulb, I find it tough and fibrous and so I always trim it out.

The bulb halves are now ready to live.  I turn each half flat side down on the cutting board and thinly slice them from the bottom of the bulb to the top.  The cut slices almost resemble celery in texture.

I cook fennel in a 50/50 mixture of olive oil and butter.   I use just enough to cover the bottom of the frying pan and lightly coat the slices.  Even when I am making a large batch, usually no more than a quarter cup of each is needed for a medium-large pan of fennel (roughly 6 cups of sliced fennel bulbs).  If I find I need more, I add more butter, a tablespoon at a time.

Adding fresh fennel leaves and dried fennel seed increases the flavor

Heat the pan, oil and butter and when the butter is completely melted, add the fennel and saute on medium heat.  You want the vegetable to slowly brown and carmelize, not quickly brown and turn to mush.

Rinse some of the lacy green fronds and roll them in a paper towel to dry them.  With kitchen shears snip the fronds into pieces 1/4 to 1/2 inch in length and add to the pan.  This enhances the flavor of the fennel.  I also add a tablespoon or two of dried fennel seed to add another layer of flavor to the dish as well.  Agenerous pinch of sea salt rounds out the flavor profile. 

With a large spatula or silicon spoon, turn the fennel until the oil and butter are evenly distributed, then add a small amount of sugar (not artificial sweetener) to help the fennel caramelize.   I add one or two tablespoons for 3-4 cups of raw fennel and two or three tablespoons for a large batch - more than 5-6 cups of raw fennel.  Even though the fennel is sweet in and of itself, the sugar helps the fennel to caramelize.

Ready to serve, the cooked fennel is a light golden brown and fork tender.

Continue to turn the fennel in the pan occasionally and let it slowly cook to a light golden brown.  When it's ready to serve, it should be tender but not crunchy.  A large pan (4-5 cups) takes about 20 minutes to cook through on medium or medium-low heat.

Although my family and I love the sweetness of caramelized fennel, I found several recipes that mentioned adding a small amount of  lemon juice to cut the sweetness and brighten the flavor.

It's important when selecting fennel bulbs to choose the widest ones (laterally, from side to side) that you can find, since the core makes up a considerable amount of the bulb.   I look for the freshest bulbs with the least amount of rust.   And for those time when you wish you had an extra fennel bulb and need to stretch the recipe, add sweet white onions.  Vidalia onions work exceptionally well but I have also used generic white onions with a tasty result.  In fact, my family said they could not tell the difference.  Peel and quarter one or two large onions and slice in the same manner as the fennel.  Add to the raw fennel and cook as above.  The onions will acquire the anise flavor during cooking.

I've used this as a side dish with chicken, pork and lamb.  Although my favorite herb references indicate that it's often paired with seafood, my seafood allergy has prevented me from experimenting with fish dishes flavored with fennel. 

Savory Surprises in the Winter Garden

When I think of the garden in winter, I think of dried seed pods and grasses, rose hips, and bare twigs. The thought of herbs rarely crosses my mind. Any green to be had in the winter garden is usually in the form of pine boughs.

After a season total of  more than nine feet of snow last year, this winter has been eerily mild.  Total snowfall barely topped a foot in aggregate and the temperatures were more like the kitchen refrigerator than a typical New England winter!

The garden under six inches of fluffy snow, March 4, 2012  

Except when they were covered with snow and I was too lazy to dig out my boots, I was able to pick fresh rosemary, oregano, thyme, parsley, and mint throughout much of the winter.

Even when they spent a few days under snow, they all rebounded quickly and I've made tabouleh all winter from the bounty. 

Flat Italian Parsley:  I covered it with an overturned bucket or  laundry basket when snow was expected.

On the deck, this shrub was the easiest to protect with a box or bucket when the weather was harsh.

The sage lasted through the New Year.  The thyme remained green all winter.

Spearmint grew with abandon all winter long.  The new growth is tender and flavorful.

Fresh oregano - a treat in pasta sauces, soups, and roasted meat.

With winter temperatures milder than normal and snowfall and ice storms infrequent, it was easy to protect tender herbs with an overturned laundry basket, box, or bucket.  I didn't expect the sage to last past the first hard frost and was pleasantly surprised to be able to pick it into the New Year. With fresh herbs a few steps from my kitchen door, fresh tabouleh salad was a treat all winter. Serve it with homemade pita chips or with hummus on English muffins.

Fresh Tabouleh Salad

   

1 cup (dry) whole grain light bulghur (approximately 2-1/2 to 3 cups prepared)

½ teaspoon kosher salt

1 cup flat Italian parsley, finely chopped  

1 large seedless cucumber, finely diced  

1 cup fresh mint, finely chopped 

1 bunch green onions, finely diced (1/2 to 1 cup)

½ bulb garlic, minced

½ sweet orange pepper, finely diced (add more if desired)

½ sweet yellow pepper, finely diced (add more if desired)

2-3 Roma tomatoes, seeded and finely diced  

½ cup finely chopped broccoli florets (use the florets only, no stems)

3 Tablespoons finely chopped fresh thyme

2 lemons, squeezed and zested

2 Tablespoons champagne vinegar

½ cup extra virgin olive oil (add more as needed, depending on volume of bulghur)

¼ teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Bring two cups of water to a boil and add bulghur and salt.  Simmer for 15 minutes and then turn off the heat and let the bulghur soak in the pan until soft.  Test the texture of the bulghur and add more water and reheat as necessary until the bulghur is fluffy, soft and only slightly toothsome. Set aside in a large bowl to cool.

Finely chop the vegetables and herbs and add to the prepared bulghur. Add lemon zest and juice, pepper, oil, and vinegar.  Toss with a large fork to mix.  Add additional mint, lemon, salt, and pepper to taste. 

Pita Chips

Pita pockets (large)
Olive oil
Oregano and Basil (dried)
Garlic Salt

Cut each pita pocket into 8 wedges and separate each wedge into two chips.
With a pastry brush, lightly brush the inside surface with olive oil. Sprinkle with garlic salt, basil and oregano.  I either crush the basil and oregano with a mortar and pestle or grind it with an herb grinder to get a very powdery consistency.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 5-10 minutes (until the inside surfaces begin to turn golden brown).

Lavenderlicious: Fabulous Cookies in a CrockPot

Savory and tart, lemon with a light touch of lavender is one of my favorite cookie flavor combinations. With a sweet-tart glaze, they are the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea.

With temperatures soaring close to 100 degrees F. (just shy of 38 degrees C.), I am not about to put the oven on to bake these decadent treats. I recently saw a recipe for cooking brownies in a slow cooker and thought, why not give it a try with cookies?  The results are, in a word, spectacular!

Baking cookies in a crock pot might seem as strange to you as baking cookies flavored with lavender. Lavender is not the first herb that comes to mind when I think of herbs for culinary use. Indeed, there is a fine line between flavorful and foul. A very light touch is all one needs when cooking with lavender, and the variety of lavender is equally important. Too much, or the wrong variety, and your cookies will have a soapy, perfume taste.

L. angustifolia "Munstead"

Each variety of lavender has a distinctive fragrance and flavor.

The amount of camphor in a particular lavender's biochemical make-up is what most affects whether it is more or less suitable for culinary use.

In my experience, the lavenders of the group Lavandula angustifolia (often referred to as the English lavenders) are my favorites for cooking.

L. intermedia x "Provence"

The French lavenders, the L. intermedia x hybrids, have a much higher camphor content and while I love the fragrance in sachets and bath salts, it's not something I enjoy eating.   

A notable exception is L. intermedia x "Provence" which is milder than most of the other French lavenders and is considered a popular culinary lavender.  However, although it is lower in camphor than it's x intermedia cousins, it is still not one that I find particularly palatable in the kitchen.

My personal favorite is L. angustifolia "Munstead", the lavender that the famous garden designer Gertrude Jekyll grew at her home, Munstead Wood, in Surry, England. 

"Munstead" is a good over-all lavender for cooking and crafts. It's extremely hardy, in part due to it's shrubby growth habit, and that makes it ideal for use as a low hedge in the garden. It's fragrant enough for sachets yet mild enough for cooking. 

"Hidcote" has taller flower spikes and makes more attractive long stemmed dried bunches and swags, but it doesn't fare as well in our micro-climate. Although "Hidcote" is zoned for our area (and even a zone colder still), I have had no luck overwintering it even with winter protection.

You can buy lavender for culinary use in specialty shops but drying your own is simple and can be done quite easily in the microwave.

The first step is to pick some lavender. I like to choose stems with only a few to no more than a third of the flowers open. The flavor of the flowers is less intense than the bud and so having some buds open can help temper the intense flavor.

If you're picking it fresh from the garden to use in a recipe, you can use it without drying it first but trying to mince it finely enough can be a challenge. Since it does carry a punch of flavor, a better way to blend it into food is by drying it and then grinding it into a fine powder with a mortar and pestle.

To dry it in the microwave, lay out several flower spikes and a few leaves (for garnish and flavor) on two layers of paper toweling on a paper plate. Cover with another paper towel and microwave until it's dry. 

This much lavender takes 2-3 minutes and it is best to do in 30 second increments. The microwave will fill with steam from the moisture in the blooms. 

After each 30 second increment of time, open the door so the steam can escape and then set it for another 30 seconds.

After the lavender is dry to the touch, let it sit for a few hours to completely dry throughout. That will allow any remaining moisture to evaporate and makes grinding it in a mortar and pestle much easier.

Remove the blossoms from the stems by gently rolling the flower wands between your fingers and letting them drop into the bowl of the mortar and pestle. 

Grind the buds and flowers to a very fine powder, removing any bits of stem that might have inadvertently fallen in. You can also dry rose petals the same way, and use a mixture of rose petals and lavender for a really delightful, unique flavor.

To prepare the crock pot, spray the inside with non-stick baking spray and line the inside of the bottom with a piece of parchment paper. 

The parchment paper helps you to lift the cookie out when it is completely cooked, so use a piece very slightly wider than the width of the crock pot and let the long ends come up each side (don't trim) of the crock pot as these will be used to lift the cookie out when it is finished baking.

Here is my recipe. You can use lavender buds and blossoms or a mixture of lavender and rose petals. I find that the petals from the Sterling Silver hybrid tea rose make an exceptionally flavorful cookie as the taste, like the fragrance, is a combination of rose and citrus that blends well with lavender and lemon.

Cathy's Lavender Lemon Crock Pot Cookies

 Ingredients:

1 stick butter, softened
1 tablespoon dried, ground lavender buds and blossoms (or a mix of lavender and rose petals)
3/4 cup sugar or granulated sugar substitute
3 jumbo eggs slightly beaten
zest and juice of 1 small lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla bean crush or vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
2 cups all purpose flour

Prepare the crock pot by spraying with cooking spray and lining the bottom with parchment paper but do not preheat.


Cream the butter and sugar or sugar substitute and then add in eggs, vanilla, salt, baking powder, and lemon juice and zest. Mix thoroughly with an electric mixer. Add in flour and continue to mix.  The batter should be very thick but "sticky". Adjust the amount of flour slightly as needed.

Turn the batter into the crock pot and spread it evenly over the bottom. It does not have to be spread tightly against the sides. Cover the crockpot and cook the cookie on High for 2-1/2 to 3 hours. 

Crock pots may vary considerably. It may take considerably more or less time to cook than stated. The top should be a pale golden brown, the bottom slightly darker. If the bottom begins to darken, reduce the temperature to Low.

After the cookie is done, lift it out and cool for about 10 minutes on a rack, just so they can be handled comfortably. Then cut into individual cookie bars using a large knife, making diagonal cuts to the left and right, which will give diamond shaped cookies. Allow them to finish cooling before glazing.

For conventional baking, preheat an oven to 350 degrees F and drop teaspoons of batter on an ungreased cookie sheet to bake.

Lavender Lemon Cookie Glaze

2 cups 10X confectioner's sugar
2 teaspoons fresh squeezed lemon juice
water - 2-3 teaspoons
1 teaspoon dried ground lavender blossoms
small amount of dried, unground lavender buds for garnish
teaspoon or so fresh lemon zest for garnish

Combine sugar, lemon juice, and dried ground lavender blossoms. (Dried ground rose petals can also be used.) Add only enough water to get the glaze to the desired thickness. I like it to be pretty thick, thick enough to spread but still "soupy" enough to drip over the sides. 

Glaze cookies and allow the glaze to drip along the sides. If the glaze is very thin, you can add a second layer. Then sprinkle whole buds and zest over the top. Makes abotu 2 dozen 1 inch diamonds.

Delicate Sweet Woodruff

Sweet woodruff, Galium odoratum, makes a prolific and lovely ground cover for the shade or semi-shade garden.

We have it throughout our white shade garden and it's delicate white flowers in early spring form a dense white carpet in keeping with the theme of the garden.

Sweet woodruff is quick to establish and can be considered invasive as it spreads easily if left unrestrained. Unlike other rapid spreaders, the members of the mint family in particular, in our shade garden it has rapidly filled spaces between plants but it has not interfered with or smothered the growth of any of the other plants. In fact, this spring, several large clumps of columbine found their way into the sweet woodruff and developed into handsome substantial plants that we transplanted to another bed.

Any overgrowth of the sweet woodruff has been a welcome blessing for us each spring. It is easily dug up and moved to other areas of the garden where it has made a lovely ground-cover under other trees and shrubs as well as blended well with vinca to help anchor a heavily shaded hill.

Sweet woodruff has a delicate fragrance and flavor reminiscent of  vanilla and makes a lovely flavor bouquet with lavender and lemon.  I've used it with fresh lemon zest and just a bit of finely minced lavender buds, blooms, or leaves (the soft new growth works well when the lavender is not in bloom). It adds a wonderful flavor note to cookies, sweet cakes, and muffins.

With both sweet woodruff and lavender, a tiny bit goes a long way. You want to add just a hint of flavor. Too much will leave you with a muffin tasting like it was made from scented soap.

Sweet woodruff is also the herb that is traditionally used to flavor May Wine. While any white wine will do, our personal favorite is a chardonnay, Arbor Mist's "Orchard Fruits". A light, sweet wine with delicious fruity notes, a sprig or two in the bottle for a few hours or overnight while it's chilling is just enough to kick it over the top and it makes a lovely garnish in the glass as well.

A spring sweet cake is best enjoyed with an afternoon cup of herbal tea, preferably in the garden! Try my own  recipe below for  a special treat. They can be served lightly dusted with confectioner sugar or frosted with flavored buttercream and garnished for special occasions.

I make a low calorie version that is better for diabetics and others watching calorie counts.

A brief word of caution is in order, however; a reader commented on one of my other blog posts about a health risk attributed to sweet woodruff. I responded to that comment and have added a comment here addressing the concern, which I would encourage readers who plan to use sweet woodruff in cooking to read and consider in the context of their own personal habits, medications and health.

Spring Sweet Cakes

Ingredients:

1 stick of butter, softened
1 cup of sugar or granulated Splenda
4 eggs lightly beaten
1-1/2 Tablespoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 heaping tablespoon of finely minced young lavender leaves
1 heaping tablespoon of finely minced woodruff leaves
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour, sifted
zest and juice of one lemon
1/2 cup of lemonade
1 cup finely diced strawberries

Instructions

In a mixer, cream sugar or Splenda and butter. Add eggs, salt, baking powder, minced herbs, lemon zest and lemon juice and continue to beat on medium speed until well mixed. Add half the flour, then the lemonade, then the remaining flour. The batter should be thicker than traditional cake batter. Continue to mix until well blended then fold in the strawberries.

Oven Temperature: 350 degrees, bake; 325 degrees convection
Baking Time - 18-20 minutes, until top springs back when pressed gently

I recommend using the large size muffin or cupcake pans or mini bundt pans.

Frost with your favorite buttercream or cream cheese frosting or drizzlew with a lemony glaze. I sometimes add some finely minced lavender leaves to the frosting or glaze. Garnish with strawberries, sweet woodruff leaves and blossoms, or lavender sprigs.