VegetablesBronze fennel: a sidewalk ingredient that's been hiding in plain sight
It may not have a bulb, but bronze fennel’s dreamy fronds can elevate a whole dish
I came to bronze fennel late in life. It’s not traditionally part of my culinary culture.
Its more popular sibling, Florence fennel – with its cultivated bulbs – is now a mainstream presence in salads, raw or roasted. One of the first and most memorable ways I’ve ever eaten it was 15 years ago, when fennel bulbs were all the rage, at Sant Ambroeus in New York. It was served Sicilian style: thinly shaved fennel and raw artichokes, Parmigiano-Reggiano, orange and mint. It was a total revelation to a small-town girl from Sydney.
Fennel is in the umbel family, which includes carrots and coriander. Unlike Florence fennel, bronze fennel – Foeniculum vulgare purpureum – will not form a bulb. A lesser-known variety, it doesn’t quite make a regular appearance in grocery stores or even farmers’ markets.
However, it’s actually pretty available – you’ve probably seen it growing wild by the roadside, and you can buy seeds and potted plants at nurseries. Its culinary uses abound. I’ve had bronze fennel stems pickled, the leaves in soups and salads, and on meat and fish.
When visiting my husband’s family in New Zealand, I spotted wild fennel everywhere. It was confusing to me, when I wanted to use it for dinner. I was told by his family: “Oh no, we don’t eat that!”. When I questioned why, they said: “It’s poisonous!”
I had just come from my first Attica experience where I was presented, proudly, with railway-line-foraged yellow sorrel flowers in a broth.
So much stigma surrounds commonly sighted “invasive weeds” that we have lost sight of what is edible and highly nutritious. We would be doing the world and our health a service to make them a regular part of our diet.
Obviously where we source these “weeds” is extremely important. You would not want to pick and eat something from a chemically sprayed or highly polluted environment.
As with herbs, which is really an interchangeable word for weeds, it is best to grow bronze fennel yourself if you can. As a bonus, it is a highly attractive plant, easy on the eye and desirable to all the insect pollinators around.
It will become the life force of your garden or balcony, drawing bees, butterflies and hover flies galore. The dreamy fronds of smokey plumes come with an explosion of floral clusters, the most happy shade of fluoro yellow. It is a stunning contrast and will thrum and dance with constant insect activity.
As for the taste, my friend chef Pasi Petanen’s constant critique whenever trying out any food unfamiliar to him is: “It will be better if it has dill in it.” I wholeheartedly agree. I would never suggest to him that these herbs are interchangeable to a home cook, but don’t worry, yes you can. Just don’t tell Pasi.
Recently, I had a bronze fennel dish that will be seared forever in my palate, like the first time I ate raw Florence fennel in a salad. At the innovative and outstanding Kadeau, in Copenhagen, chefs Nicolai Nørregaard and Kyumin Hahn used it in a dessert.
I’ve eaten some remarkable things since then, but this dessert stands out like the north star in a sky full of diamonds. Perfumed, semi-dried damson plums, glazed with a tart rose-hip syrup, a delicately bitter taste tempered with the fresh herbaceous hint of meadowsweet leaves, and the liquorice aniseed of young bronze fennel tips, rounded off with fragrant wild carrot seed oil. It’s a genius dish, using like with like and herbs as the sweetening component. My first Florence fennel was presented in a traditional context, and this was a thoroughly modern one.
That’s the beauty of humble, everyday sidewalk ingredients. When they are used so cleverly, they hide in plain sight, then elevate the whole.
Bronze fennel pistou-ish
A key pantry staple that can be pulled out to be put on absolutely anything that you’d want to pep up. Served with raw, roasted or steamed vegetables it makes for a delicious dip. It’s brilliant stirred into soups, and thinned out it can be used as a salad dressing. It keeps refrigerated for a month, but in my household it never lasts that long. My husband sneaks a spoonful every time we open the fridge
1 cup packed organic bronze fennel, chopped
½ cup packed organic parsley, chopped
¼ cup organic pumpkin seeds, soaked overnight in apple cider vinegar then dehydrated in the oven at 60C until dry
2 cups best quality extra virgin olive oil
2 organic wax free lemons, zested and halved
6 cloves organic garlic, chopped
2 tbs sea salt
5 spicy organic fresh chillies
½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
In a blender, or if you’re keen a mortar and pestle, blitz or pound the pumpkin seeds, garlic, chilli, bronze fennel and parsley with one cup of olive oil. Slowly keep adding oil so your blades don’t get stuck. If pounding, add oil towards the end. When the ingredients are a rough paste, stir in the salt, lemon zest and Parmigiano-Reggiano.
Scoop out whenever you’re walking past the fridge with whatever chip, veg or spoon you have on hand.
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