Fennel is one of my favorite vegetables, especially in the colder months. I love its fresh, anice-scented flavor and, when raw, its satisfying crunch. I enjoy raw fennel as part of a green salad, in a gorgeous Sicilian salad with oranges and olives, in a pinzimonio. dipped in bagna cauda, or even just on its own, as a kind of ‘dessert’ after a meal. It’s a fantastic palate cleanser.
Fennel is also delicious when it’s cooked. The texture changes radically, of course. Its crunchiness gives way to an almost silky softness. It also has a very different but no less appealing taste, mellower but also sweeter. Perhaps the most common way to enjoy cooked fennel in Italian cookery is gratinéed with butter and cheese. It is also lovely gratinéed with garlic, herbs and bread crumbs. But there are many other ways to enjoy it. Here on Memorie di Angelina, for instance, we’ve featured a fennel sformato as well as fennel paired with oven roasted fish. And the wild variety called finocchietto selvatico—for which you can substitute fennel stalks and fronds—lend a lovely anice flavor to the classic Sicilian pasta con le sarde.
Fennel and tomatoes: A lovely couple
Fennel also marries quite well with tomatoes. A simple way to pair them is finocchi in umido, where you braise the fennel wedges in tomato sauce. I originally thought to share that recipe with you this week, but I decided to experiment instead with something slightly more elaborate, which I’ve dubbed finocchi rifatti al pomodoro.
Taking a cue from a popular Tuscan dish made with cardoons, I parboiled fennel slices, then fried them in a flour and egg batter, and finally simmered them in simple garlic scented tomato sauce. I think the experiment was a rousing success, if I do say so myself. This ‘triple cooked’ method might be a bit more work than finocchi in umido, but your efforts will pay delicious dividends.
Ingredients
Serves 4-6 as a side
- 2 large fennel bulbs
- salt
For frying the fennel:
- all purpose flour
- 2 eggs, beaten
- olive, peanut or vegetable oil
- salt
- A spoonful or two of freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano (optional)
For the tomato sauce:
- 1 large can of crushed tomatoes, or milled peeled tomatoes, or a bottle of passata
- 2-3 cloves of garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
- olive oil
- salt and pepper, to taste
- A fresh basil leaf (optional)
Directions
Make the tomato sauce
In a sauté pan or skillet, gently sauté the garlic in abundant olive oil. When the garlic has just begun to give off its aroma, add the milled tomatoes and, if using, the basil leaf. Season with salt and a good grind of pepper.
Simmer the tomatoes over a gentle flame for about 15-20 minutes, until they have reduced into a rich sauce or until needed.
Prep the fennel
Trim the fennel bulbs of their green stalks and peel off any brusing Then cut them vertically into slices about 1 cm (1/4 inch) thick.
Parboil the fennel slices in well salted water, about 5-7 minutes, until almost but not quite tender. Using a skimmer, lift the slices out of their cooking water and lay them on a kitchen towel to dry and cool off a bit.
Fry the fennel
Arrange two shallow bowls, one with the flour and the other with the beaten egg. In a skillet or saute pan, heat enough oil to come up perhaps 1 cm (1/2 in) deep.
When the oil is hot but not smoking, pass the slices in the flour, then in the beaten egg, then place them in the hot oil.
Fry the fennel slices until golden brown on both sides, proceeding in batched if need be.
Finish the dish
As the slices are done frying, transfer them to the tomato sauce.
Simmer the fennel slices in the sauce for 5 minutes or so to let them absorb the flavor, turning them once or twice only. If the sauce has reduced too much to cover the fennel, you can top it up with some of the fennel cooking water.
Let the dish rest off heat for a few minutes, then serve warm.
Notes on finocchi rifatti al pomodoro
When you fry the fennel slices, make sure not to crowd them in the pan. Make sure also the oil is nice and hot so they will crisp up and not get soggy. The oil should bubble up around the edges of the fennel slices, as pictured below.
Since the fennel slices are already parboiled and will cook further in the sauce, you needn’t worry too terribly much about moderating the temperature so the insides has time to cook. Do turn down the heat if the starts to smoke, but otherwise just focus on getting the slices nice and brown on the outside.
Adding the grated cheese to the egg is my little riff. It’s not part of the traditional triple cooked method. But I find it adds a barefly perceptible je ne sais quoi.
There are different ways to handle the garlic. My usual way, as regular readers will know, is to to sauté whole garlic cloves until just lightly brown around the edges and then discard them. You can certainly do that here, too. For this dish, however, I wanted a more garlic forward sauce, so I added sliced garlic and, of course, left the slices to simmer in and dissolve into the sauce.
Related dishes
The fried fennel slices are perfectly delicious on their own, sprinkled with a little salt. If you’re going this route, you could also bread them after passing them in the flour and egg, turning them into a kind of fennel cutlet.
If you want to make finocchi in umido, cut the fennel bulbs into wedges rather than slices, then add them to the garlic and oil for a few minutes to absorb their flavors. Then add the milled tomatoes and simmer until the fennel is tender and the sauce nicely reducted.
As mentioned, you can use this same method with cardoons to make the classic Tuscan dish gobbi rifatti al pomodoro. Cardoons are another favorite vegetable of mine, but where I live they’re about as hard to find as unicorns. You’ll need to prep them as outlined in this post before proceeding with the above recipe.
Regular readers may have noticed the family resemblance with another timeless Tuscan classic, sedani alla pratese. That dish uses the same triple cooked method for a much more substantial main course of stuffed celery simmered in meat sauce.
Making finocchi rifatti al pomodoro ahead
If you ask me, this dish is at its best when it’s freshly made. And after all, it only takes 30 minutes to prepare. Or make the tomato sauce and fried fennel ahead, then simmer them together for five mnutes when you’re ready to eat.
That said, if you must, you can make the dish entirely ahead and gently reheat it. Since the batter will absorb much of the sauce, add water to the skillet then bring it to a gentle simmer for, say, 5 minutes or so before serving.
Finocchi rifatti al pomodoro
Ingredients
- 2 large fennel bulbs
- salt
For frying the fennel:
- all purpose flour
- 2 eggs beaten
- oil olive oil and/or peanut oil
- salt
- 2 tbs parmigiano-reggiano freshly grated (optional)
For the tomato sauce:
- 1 large can of crushed tomatoes or milled peeled tomatoes, or a bottle of passata
- 2-3 cloves of garlic peeled and thinly sliced
- olive oil
- salt and pepper to taste
- A fresh basil leaf optional
Instructions
Make the tomato sauce
- In a sauté pan or skillet, gently sauté the garlic in abundant olive oil. When the garlic has just begun to give off its aroma, add the milled tomatoes and, if using, the basil leaf. Season with salt and a good grind of pepper.
- Simmer the tomatoes over a gentle flame for about 15-20 minutes, until they have reduced into a rich sauce or until needed.
Prep the fennel
- Trim the fennel bulbs of their green stalks and peel off any brusing Then cut them vertically into slices about 1 cm (1/4 inch) thick.
- Parboil the fennel slices in well salted water, about 5-7 minutes, until almost but not quite tender. Using a skimmer, lift the slices out of their cooking water and lay them on a kitchen towel to dry and cool off a bit.
Fry the fennel
- Arrange two shallow bowls, one with the flour and the other with the beaten egg. In a skillet or saute pan, heat enough oil to come up perhaps 1 cm (1/2 in) deep.
- When the oil is hot but not smoking, pass the slices in the flour, then in the beaten egg, then place them in the hot oil.
- Fry the fennel slices until golden brown on both sides, proceeding in batched if need be.
Finish the dish
- As the slices are done frying, transfer them to the tomato sauce.
- Simmer the fennel slices in the sauce for 5 minutes or so to let them absorb the flavor, turning them once or twice only. If the sauce has reduced too much to cover the fennel, you can top it up with some of the fennel cooking water.
- Let the dish rest off heat for a few minutes, then serve warm.
Nutrition
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I love fennel too, but have never had them prepared this way…very different and looks quite delicious too.
I have been eating finnochi my whole life, probably like most Italians. I Love this recipe. It looks just perfect . It’s going to be something I will prepare very soon. Thanks!
I think the first time I had fennel was in 1990 when in Florence. My friend and I found a cafeteria of sorts meant for students. The meal was cheap — I remember it being 12,000 Lire (about $10) — and included wine as long as you didn’t pass the crayon mark on the bottle. If you did you paid more. I don’t remember the main course but the contorno was a gratin of fennel, butter and cheese. It was a transformative culinary moment for me. I never avoided fennel but, after this meal, I sought it. I make so many fennel dishes now — many of which you have enumerated — and I will be making this version with tomato. My sauce may be a little different but I am sure it will be incredible. And I never mind a process that uses triple cooking — more time in the kitchen for me! Happy weekend!
This is interesting- I usually use fennel as a way of ‘sneaking’ some flavor into a recipe rather than featuring it as a main ingredient. With its slightly ‘licorice’ taste, I can also see why fennel could be used as a dessert (how about “Fennel Ice Cream’)! After slicing a fennel bulb in half, I usually remove the core at the bottom, but I see you didn’t bother with that step; always learning new things from you!