Cold, refreshing beverages are an important part of my life right now and will be until the end of this hot, hot weather. So, I was thrilled to find some pages I cut from the April issue of Food and Wine that were full of cocktails and mocktails. This almond-fennel beverage was intended as a mocktail, but I couldn't resist adding some vodka. The flavors sounded intriguing, and since it's made with orgeat, I had to try it. Last year, I found myself in the middle of an orgeat search and learned that it's exactly the same as almond syrup. For the fennel flavor in this cocktail, a second syrup is made by steeping crushed fennel seeds in water and then dissolving sugar in it. The bubbles from club soda and the green, frilly fennel frond garnish gave it a cool, crisp look making it an inviting way to combat the heat.You'll need to make the fennel syrup in advance since the seeds need to steep for about 20 minutes. A tablespoon of fennel seeds were crushed in a spice grinder and then added to a cup of water which was brought to a boil. It was removed from the heat, covered, and allowed to steep. Then, the seeds were strained as the water was poured through a sieve into a jar or measuring pitcher. One cup of sugar was added and stirred until it dissolved. The fennel syrup can be stored in the refrigerator for a month. To make the cocktail, combine orgeat, or almond syrup, fennel syrup, fresh lemon juice, and vodka if you'd like. Add ice, stir in club soda, and garnish with a fennel frond.
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In that same episode, she and her friend also made an incredible-looking salted caramel ice cream for dessert. I’m not sure why, but that recipe is nowhere to be found on the web site or in her book, or I would have made that too. [Update: Thanks to a commenter, the recipe was found. It's on the Barefoot Contessa site. Wish I would have thought to look there!] But, back to the shrimp. I made this for dinner the next night. The shrimp, fennel, and tomatoes were scooped onto plates and served with bread for dipping into the sauce exactly as Ina had served it. It was casual, great for summer, couldn't have been easier, and tasted like it should have involved much more effort than it actually did.This goes quickly, so you'll want to have all the ingredients prepped and ready. First, diced fennel was sauteed in olive oil, and then minced garlic was added. White wine was used to deglaze the pan, and then canned, diced tomato, tomato paste, and some oregano were added followed by just a tablespoon of Pernod. It really does add nice, anise flavor with just that small amount. This mixture was left to simmer for about fifteen minutes before the shelled and deveined shrimp were set on top. Crumbled feta was strewn about the pan, and then a mix of breadcrumbs, parsley, and lemon zest was sprinkled on top. The saute pan went into a 400 degree F oven for fifteen minutes, and then it was served with lemon wedges and bread.![]()
since this has become my go-to pasta recipe. I cut the fresh pasta sheets into thin spaghetti and let the strands dry for a bit while working on the breadcrumbs. Half a loaf of day-old bread, and I used some leftover Norwich sourdough which had been stored in the freezer since Christmas, was cut into chunks and tossed with extra virgin olive oil, salt, and red chile flakes. The bread chunks were toasted on a sheet pan in the oven until dry and crisp, and they were left to cool. Then, they went into a food processor with some fronds from the fennel and were pulsed until crumbly. Next, the fennel bulbs were prepped by slicing them thinly with a mandoline or Benriner. Lemon rind was supposed to have been cut into thin ribbons, but Kurt isn’t a fan of big pieces of citrus rind in savory dishes, so I zested the lemon with a microplane instead. Last, garlic was minced, and cooking could commence. While water for the pasta boiled, olive oil was heated in a large saute pan. The fennel and garlic were gently cooked over medium heat so as not to brown the fennel but just to allow it to soften. The lemon zest was added, and after a short dunk in the boiling water, the drained pasta was added with lemon juice and more olive oil. Everything was tossed about in the pan to combine and warm through, and then it was served topped with the breadcrumbs.
2 teaspoons dried chile flakes
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 organic lemons (organic is important here since the peel will be used)
3 fennel bulbs
12 ounces long strands of thin pasta (make fresh pasta if you have time)
Salt and pepper to taste
-Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F. Cut or pull the bread into chunks and place on a baking sheet. Toss the bread chunks with two tablespoons of the olive oil, the dried chile flakes, and a big pinch of salt. Spread the pieces into an even layer and bake for about 10 minutes until golden and crisp. Then, set aside and allow to cool.
- Zest one lemon and then cut both in halve to be juiced. Remove and discard the outer leaves of the fennel and reserve 1/2 cup of the fronds. Thinly slice the fennel, and using a Benriner is the quickest way to do it.
- Place the fennel fronds and cooled bread chunks in a food processor and pulse until crumbly.
- Boil a large pot of salted water for the pasta, and time the cooking of the pasta for it to be ready when the fennel and lemon zest have cooked (fresh pasta will cook must faster than dried). Meanwhile, heat three tablespoons olive oil in a large saute pan over medium heat. Add the sliced fennel to the saute pan, and cook while stirring for a couple of minutes. Add the minced garlic and continue to cook for three minutes until the fennel begins to soften. Add the lemon zest, reduce heat to low and cook for another five minutes or so. The goal is for the lemon and garlic flavors to meld with the fennel, but the fennel should only gently cook and not brown. When the pasta has cooked, drain it and add it to the saute pan. Add the juice from the two lemons and the remaining olive oil, and toss to combine.
- Serve the pasta and fennel topped with a generous handful of the breadcrumbs, and I promise you won’t need a single shred of parmesan.I’m submitting this to Yeastspotting where you’ll find some seriously well-made bread.
I’ve been eating a lot of delicious, fresh, raw tomatoes this summer. I joked that I could eat caprese salad every day, and then have pretty much done just that. I keep bringing home fresh mozzarella and heirloom tomatoes and plucking leaves off my basil plants. It’s a perfect combination, but I finally decided to change it up and do something else with tomatoes. I had this recipe for warm tomato dressing from Living magazine from last year, and it’s a versatile sauce. It can be made in advance and then re-warmed for serving. In the magazine, it was shown as a topping for roasted fennel, and that’s how I served it. It would also be great with chicken or over polenta or with other roasted or grilled vegetables. I used some pretty, little pear tomatoes but any kind of cherry-type tomatoes will work great. They’re cooked with wine and balsamic vinegar and take on a sweet and tangy flavor.I have to confess that I didn’t read the recipe very carefully when I was writing up a shopping list. I skipped right over the word ‘red’ next to wine in the ingredient list. When I started cooking, I realized we had no red wine in the house, and I had to use white wine instead. As you can see in the photos, the dressing still became a deep, red color from the balsamic vinegar. So, to make the dressing, the tomatoes were cooked in a skillet with a little olive oil for a few minutes, and then garlic, wine, and balsamic vinegar were added and cooked until the liquid was reduced by half. A little splash of red wine vinegar and salt were added at the end, and sugar was to have been added as well but I skipped it since I thought the sauce was sweet enough. To serve, I spooned the warm dressing over wedges of roasted fennel.
Back in May, I made a spicy slaw from Tyler Florence’s Eat This Book
and then realized there were several other things in that book I needed to make. One of those other things was this African-spiced chicken. In the book, the complete dish involves shredding the chicken and wrapping it in flatbread with apricot couscous and the sauce. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I really just wanted the chicken and the green olive sauce. I was drawn in by the mix of spices rubbed on the chicken and the burnished, oven-roasted, finished bird, and I had to find out how it tasted with that sauce.
The spice mix was made by toasting broken cinnamon sticks, cloves, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, fennel seeds, peppercorns, and sweet paprika in a dry skillet. Once the heat made the spices aromatic, they were placed in a coffee grinder which I use just for spices. Salt was added, and the mixture was ground to a powder. The spice mixture was rubbed onto the chicken, and I always loosen the skin over the breast so as to season under the skin as well. Then, cilantro, one halved lemon, and on halved head of garlic were placed in the cavity. I left the chicken in the refrigerator for a few hours to absorb the flavors, and then it was roasted in a 400 degree F oven for just over an hour. For the sauce, shallots and one red chile were sauteed in olive oil until the shallots were caramelized. That mixture was added to a food processor with one half pound of pitted, green Spanish olives, parsley leaves, sherry vinegar, lemon juice, and olive oil. That was pureed until very smooth.
Not only did those spices smell wonderful as the chicken roasted, they also really permeated the meat. Then, there was the sauce. The sauteed shallots sweetened the brininess of the olives, the parsley gave it herby freshness, and the oil smoothed it out nicely. It complemented the chicken well, and served as a nice dressing with some mixed baby greens. I can also report that the leftover chicken made one of the best chicken salads I’ve had. This was a twist on roasted chicken I'll be repeating often.
This summer is becoming the season of salads, and this one comes from April’s Food and Wine. It’s from Jeremy Fox of Ubuntu which is a restaurant and yoga studio in Napa. The restaurant’s menu focuses on vegetable-inspired meals with daily-harvested and farm-fresh produce. I hope to visit it one of these days, but until then, I have the recipes from the magazine. For this salad, I feared the ingredients might require an extended search mission, and I was ready to make substitutions as needed. Just when I was willing to relent, I easily found both red quinoa and black radishes. Little shopping successes like that give me hope for future ingredient hunts. Once all the items had been gathered, the salad was very simple to assemble.
First, red radishes, black radishes, carrots, and fennel were thinly sliced on a Benriner. Then, the slices were transferred to a bowl of ice water which was refrigerated for an hour. That is what made this salad what it was. The vegetables became incredibly crisp with a lasting, transformed texture. The red quinoa was cooked in water, allowed to cool, and then combined with a simple vinaigrette of lemon juice, lemon zest, olive oil, salt, and pepper. The shaved vegetables topped the quinoa to finish the salad.
It’s so simple, it might even sound boring, but it was light, crunchy, and lemony. The vinaigrette mixed into the quinoa brought plenty of acidity and seasoning for the entire plate. The flavor of the fennel mingled its way among the other vegetables in a nice way, and the cold crispness of the slices were the textural opposite of the cooked quinoa. I hadn’t eaten black radishes before, but the flavor was very mild. The skin was thicker than that of the red radishes, and they seemed a little firmer when being cut. The visual appeal of the contrasting colors and shapes matched the experience of eating the different textures in the salad. Simply put, this was fun to eat, and chilling shaved vegetables is a technique I’ll definitely use again.
Deciding what to serve with a whole grilled chicken was easy. I had some potatoes from our CSA and the Potato book from Williams-Sonoma, and I put the two together. I’m really not being paid by WS this week, but I seem to keep mentioning them. I handed this book to Kurt and asked him to pick a potato dish, and his choice was fennel and parmesan scalloped potatoes. Fresh fennel bulb was thinly sliced to bake within layers of potatoes and cheese, and it became tender and mild as its anise flavor mellowed and mingled with the other ingredients. It was a simple dish to assemble, and the hour it spent in the oven gave me plenty of time to prepare the rest of the meal.
I always seem to get lazy when it comes to peeling potatoes, and I don’t mind seeing the peel anyway. So, as usual, I ignored the step about removing the peels. Slicing the potatoes and the fennel was made quick and easy with a Benriner. Once sliced, they were placed in a pot with half and half, milk, chopped chives, chopped fennel fronds, and thyme. That half and half was supposed to have been cream, but I was feeling like I just didn’t need a dose of heavy cream that day, so I used half and half instead. The pot was placed over medium-high heat, brought to a boil, and allowed to boil for a minute. Half of the mixture was transferred to a greased baking dish, it was sprinkled with shredded parmigiano reggiano, the other half was layered on top, the remaining liquid was poured into the baking dish, and more cheese was added. This baked, covered with foil, for 40 minutes, and then the foil was removed for an additional 20 minutes in the oven.
Given the combination that went into the baking dish and the amount of time the layered potatoes and fennel spent melding and becoming fetchingly golden, I don’t think it’s necessary to explain how good that was. It’s not even possible that it wouldn’t be good. The fennel had a barely noticeable sturdier texture than the potatoes, and the cheese added its lovely nutty, salty richness. This potato dish could be paired with a lot of things, but it worked very well with chicken.
I'm submitting this to the June PhD.
Our spring/summer CSA subscription just started, and Hands of the Earth Farm grew some beautiful beets. The bunch we received included red, gold, and some pale, pinkish white ones. I wanted to use these in some interesting way, and I knew right where to look. I read A16: Food + Wine recently, and I remembered seeing this salad in the Anitpasti chapter. This book tells the story of the San Francisco restaurant of the same name and the southern Italian food and wine that inspired the menu and wine list. The first section in the book covers wine by region. This area of Italy is not as well-known for its wine as the northern regions, and less wine is exported from the south. I learned a lot about some unfamiliar varietals and some interesting wines to look for in stores and restaurants. In the food section of the book, there is a wine suggestion for each dish, and for this salad that was Asprinio di Aversa from Campania. Asprinio means “slightly sour,” and this wine is described as lean and crisp with a sour edge. Unfortunately, it’s not an easy one to locate. Another wine from Campania is Greco di Tufo which is also a lean white with some acidity, and this I was able to find.
The fresh, pretty beets were roasted until tender, allowed to cool, peeled, and chopped into wedges. Fennel was sliced, quickly blanched, rinsed, and drained. A thick vinaigrette was to be made from black olives. I used black Cerignolas which have a nice, buttery, olive flavor but are a little difficult to pit. The pitted olives were pulsed in a food processor with olive oil and red wine vinegar, and this was tossed with the prepared beets. The drained, sliced fennel was tossed with lemon juice, olive oil, and salt. The salad was plated by piling some fennel in the center and surrounding it with beets, and an aged sheep’s pecorino, oro antico, was shaved on top of it all. I didn’t even realize until I had plated the salads that there is no pepper in this dish. I had to stop and think about whether I had grabbed the peppermill at some point out of habit, and no, I did not, I actually followed the instructions correctly. Throughout the food portion of the book, Appleman mentions the simplicity of flavors found in southern Italian food. He mentions that traditionally when onion is used, garlic is not, and when chiles are used, black pepper isn't. He doesn’t always use black pepper whether chiles are present or not. In general, ingredients are left in simple combinations to prevent one flavor from sullying or masking another.
Here, the focus of the salad was the sweetness of the vegetables accented by the briny olives and salty cheese. A small amount of salt was used in dressing the fennel, but pepper was not used at any point. Each item on the plate fulfilled exactly what it should have. The fennel was perfect with lemon, and the olives met well with the earthy sweetness of the beets. The sharp yet rich bite of the cheese brought all the flavors together, and the crisp, light, Greco di Tufo with a hint of grapefruit was just what was meant to go with it since I don’t know what I was missing with the Asprinio di Aversa.
I approach a Christmas Eve menu with the intention of keeping it simpler than Christmas day and keeping it mostly meatless. It also tends to be Italian, and this year I decided on a main course of risotto. When I make risotto at home, it’s always with either mushrooms or seafood, but this time I wanted to try something different. So, I asked Kurt to pick a risotto from Jamie's Italy, and he chose this fennel and dried chili variation.
The preparation begins the same as any other risotto except that Jamie includes chopped celery with the onion and garlic. Once those are sautéed together, the rice is added and stirred until translucent. Then begins the dance of adding wine and stirring and then chicken broth and stirring and then stirring more and more and so forth. I don’t mind the stirring so much when I have a nice glass of Sangiovese and some sharp provolone and asiago for refreshment, and I did have those things nearby and all was well. For this dish, there were two pans of sautéing vegetables working at once. Thinly sliced fennel and some mashed-up fennel seeds cooked while the risotto got its start. The fragrance of the fennel and fennel seed cooking together was enough to tell me this was going to be a fine meal.
When the risotto reached the half-way point, the sautéed fennel was added. At the end of the cooking time, butter and parmigiana were stirred in with lemon zest, lemon juice, and some ricotta. To serve, each plate was topped with torn, dried red chilis, fennel tops, a drizzle of olive oil, and a bit more parmigiana. The sweet fennel flavor with the hot red chilis worked nicely, and the lemon did a lovely job of perking up everything else. Kurt did well with his risotto selection, and we’ll definitely be making this one again.
