When you cook it, I like to braise after getting them good and caramelized, the flavor becomes much lighter.

On a tip from Zora last summer, I started thinly slicing fennel and mixing it with sliced vidalia onions, cut up fresh figs, salt, pepper and olive oil, all roasted together in the oven till caramelized. The sweetness of the figs and the onions counters the really strong licorice flavor of the fennel and it's delicious!

Try adding a squeeze of lemon juice and a little bit of finely shaved lemon zest after roasting and before serving--even better...

More of a winter dish, but slicing a fennel bulb in half, braising it in chicken stock and then melting/browning goat cheese on top is pretty good.

While making vegetable soup tonight, I was struck with how much fennel I was about to waste (all those fronds and stalks). So instead of tossing it on the compost pile, it's simmering in a pot with vegetable stock, a bay leaf, and some peppercorns.

The idea is to make a creamy fennel soup for dinner tomorrow. I'd like to use nothing fattier than whole milk, though. Any ideas what to do next? (I did set aside two of the bulbs rather than adding them to tonight's soup.) Thanks.

Maybe start with a roux, then add stock and milk. Hopefully you can thicken it with just enough flour to get a nice creamier texture without any flour flavor. Finish with Zambuca, Pernod or anisette That'll finish it off very nicely.

A good way to thicken a soup without any starch is to puree all or part of the solids. Ratio of liquid to pureed solids will determine how thick the soup will be. What else do you plan to have in it, besides fennel? If you are willing to put some potatoes in to cook with the fennel, that will give it a nice, creamy texture when it is pureed.

<shrug> not really sure. Onion, potato. Finish it with some alcohol as monovano suggests. Maybe serve it with fish? Or add chunks of fish? Or crab?

Hey--that traditional New England staple: fish and fennel chowder! Fish and fennel are a natural pairing in Provence, so why not?

This is starting to sound like a plan. Might be in your neck of the woods shopping tomorrow...

Some mussels and saffron might be nice.

I like the sound of this...are figs still in season? Might be a hard sell with the family. How about a couple olives in there? One thing too many?

What would you serve this with? I'm thinking fish, but that's right out. ^2

Fresh figs are just coming into season, as it happens. I have some just beginning to ripen on my tree, but they don't have much flavor, so I roast them with almond oil, honey, marsala, lemon zest--to give them more taste than they brung to the party. I have also dried some in my convection oven, and those are pretty good. For eating fresh or roasting with fennel, I prefer the black mission variety. As for olives--interesting idea. I say try it. If it doesn't work, don't do it again. You may have discovered something wonderful.

I haven't ever served the roasted fennel-fig slaw with fish. It'd probably be great with wild salmon. I have served it with duck (once with grilled duck breast and several times with duck leg confit) and also with pork.

Soup report: in the ended I decided on something simple and straightforwad. Cooked thinly slicy fennel and onions in olive oil for a long time til nicely soft and caramelized, added stock, salt, pepper, a bit of saffron, and chopped potato. Cokked until potato was soft, than added pieces of monkfish and black grouper. And a few golden cherry tomatoes. The soup had a disticnt but not overwhleming fennel flavor. Tasty, but nothing special.

So, there was some fennel in tonight's dinner. One bulb's worth. Picked it up yesterday morning at Dupont. Delicious. Yet there was an incredible forest atop the bulb. It was not your normal type forest of fennel fronds. It was the kind that may have been planted atop the place that's always greener. Small cities could be shaded and cooled by this fennel top. It was so bushy you could hide Cousin It behind them and have no idea he/she was there.

So, I put some in my dinner. I've fed some to my rabbit. But what can I do with the rest of them? There's a dump truck's worth! Can you make fennel frond pesto? Can I dry them for later use? Can I freeze them for later use? Can I grind them in the food processor and then freeze them and make green snowballs? Or do I just toss them in the trash?

I vote for the green snowballs. If the use must be food related, I'd make a fennel based veggie broth.

Do you have the stalks too, or just the leafy fronds? If you have both use them in bouillabaise. It's not strictly traditional but it tastes good. PM if you'd like a recipe.

You can also use the fronds in a steamed or baked fish dish. I would freeze them to have them available for the future.

Or you can steep in some milk and make some ice cream.

Use it to make mint ice cream. Replace mint with fennel tops. Feed to unsuspecting people.

Try this and report back! Or fashion a ZZ Top beard out of the fronds and post a picture of yourself wearing it.

On his new show on the Travel Channel Jamie Oliver just chopped up the tops and put them in to slits of what I think is rock fish and then grilled the whole thing.

This kind of explains my problem with fresh fennel. There seems to be nothing one could do with the stalks and fronds and that has always struck me as being such a waste. Throw them into the chicken stock?

you can chop up fennel fronds along with some carrot-top greens and toss them with whatever else you like with pasta. leeks have the same problem as fennel, although they are more versatile for stock. i've used fennel in stock and the flavor is not that pronounced. what bugs me more than discarding parts of vegetables i can't use, however, is paying fairly high prices for them by the pound.

Does anyone have any other fennel ideas? I've heard of people eating it raw as crudite, but have never done so myself. I wonder if roasted fennel would be good matched with a lemon zest- light cream sauce in pasta...

I do a roasted fennel and fig slaw-- basically shredded fennel and onion and fresh figs--or soaked dried ones. Tossed with a little olive oil and some salt. Don't add vinegar or lemon juice before roasting, or you get stew. Add the acidic ingredient after it comes out of the oven. I usually use lemon juice.

Very thinly sliced fennel and onion tossed with some citrus vinaigrette makes a refreshing salad.

There's also a great recipe for braised fennel in Molto Mario. It's a crowd pleaser.

Hide a fennel bulb under your shirt, then, in front of a large group of people, conspicuously drink some sort of vegetable juice while informing your guests that you have finally perfected your formula to transform from man to vegetable. Halfway through, drop the glass, gasp, and clutch in pain at your "heart." Shout that something is wrong, and that you desperately need some sort of mandolin or vegetable peeler, before saying it's too late. Squeeze the fennel bulb out of your shirt so it flies into the hands of one of the more squeamish party goers, who will hopefully faint at the sight of your organ-shaped vegetable.

I do something similar without the onion. I thinly slice the fennel on a mandolin then toss it with lemon zest, lemon juice, olive oil, white pepper, salt, and fennel fronds. It makes for a very refreshing salad.

I have to agree with how good a simple salad like this is. The rounder female bulbs tend to have a superior flavor to the flat male ones (no offense intended; my reference is very specific). I like the fennel slices tossed in lots of lemon juice, but then drizzled with olive oil with big curls of Parmesan on top.

Raw fennel & thin rings of oranges make a pretty salad, especially with Cara-Cara oranges (the Moro blood oranges bleed too much). The Baroque version of the salad in Cucina Fresca (a favorite no-fuss cookbook that promotes room-temperature dishes; great for entertaining) includes thin, separated rings of red onions that you soak in ice-cold water to remove the harsh "bite", minced cured black olives and fresh mint. Toss the fennel with a little orange juice first to prevent discoloration, season, then arrange all artfully on a platter with fronds and drizzle with olive oil.

As for cooked fennel, Marcella Hazan has a great recipe for braised fennel and thick-filleted fish, all prepared stovetop. I also love the Sicilian pasta di sardi which I make with currants vs. raisins and anchovies in addition to sardines (fresh or canned in olive oil). Fine without saffron.

I was at a dinner last fall where Gerard Pangaud served fennel that he'd roasted while basting with honey. Might have been the best fennel I've ever had. Have yet to try this myself.

The fennel "fries" (thinly sliced fried fennel) at David Greggory are damn good.

Recently at Union Square Cafe I had a salad of Cara-Cara oranges that had a fennel vinaigrette. When I saw it on the menu, I figured the vinaigrette would have been flavored with fennel seeds, but it was actually an ample amount of bulb that had been finely diced. It was one of the best salads I have ever eaten.

You are right about the curls of Parmesan on the fennel salad, I had completely forgotten about that addition.

And there are fennel crisps that are great addition to various desserts. The fennel bulb is sliced thinly (from root end to top) and these slices are blanched in a simply syrup solution for a couple of minutes or so. Then you take the soften slices and lay them on a baking sheet sandwiched between 2 silpats. Place in a 250F oven until slightly browned. They will be soft and delicate when they are fresh out of the oven, but will crisp up when cooled.

Oh, and I forgot about the Parmesan on the salad too!

I think I had this exact salad at Two Amys last summer. It was UNBELIEVABLY good!!