I don't eat fennel all that often. It's delicious roasted, but honestly it's not a "go to" except when I roast a chicken. I love slivered fennel added to whatever veggies wind up under the bird. My problem is not taste; it's that I never knew what to do with those fronds and I hated relegating them to the compost when they're actually quite tasty. It really grinds my gears to throw away such a substantial (and edible and tasty) portion of any food, so instead of subjecting myself to gear-grinding, I just don't buy it that often.
Now, I do add a heaping helping of fronds in with my other herbs when I stuff the interior, but typically I'm roasting a 2-pound bird, so we're not talking about a massive cavity here. In addition to the herbs, I must have garlic and some citrus that limited space, so I always have quite a lot of fennel bits left over. Some can go in my stock bag, but I don't want the fennel taste to overwhelm, so I'm judicious there.
To my delight, I've recently learned fennel makes a terrific substitute for dill! We use dill fairly regularly around here in everything from scrambled eggs to my husbands killer tuna salad, so if for some reason you never know what to do with your own fennel fronds, just pretend you found some gorgeous fresh dill in your vegetable drawer. According to the intertubes you can also dry it just like dill as well, but I haven't tried that yet.
I wonder if it can be used for pickling. Fennel is available everywhere here in Buenos Aires, but dill is much more difficult to come by. I am going to make some pickled green beans this week, and I think I will try using the fennel fronds in place of the dill that the recipe requires. Thanks for posting this - it was very useful!
ReplyDeleteLet me know how it works! I have quite a lot of fennel going this year in the garden.
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