Braised Fennel with Parmesan

The name of the recipe says it all, but if you’ve never tried cooking fennel, it’s interesting. I like fennel seeds in my Italian sausage, but never really thought of the fennel plant as food, that is until now. The trick to having this recipe turn out, is to make sure you thoroughly cook the fennel. Beyond that, everything takes care of itself.

Ingredients

• 3 Fennel bulbs – cut in half down bulb and trimmed
• 0.5 Onion – diced
• 1 Celery stalk – chopped
• 1 Garlic clove – minced
• 8 oz Beef stock – can use chicken
• 1 Lemon – juiced
• 0.25 cup Parmesan – grated
• 2 TBL Olive oil or butter
• 2 TBL Kosher salt – for boiling
• 1 tsp Sea Salt
• 0.25 tsp pepper

Process

1. Mise in Place – measure and prepare your ingredients before starting.
2. Preheat oven to 325 F (163 C).
3. Bring a large pot of salted water to boil Drop in fennel and cook for 5 mins (add ~4 mins for high elevation), and drain.
4. Combine fennel with rest of ingredients, except the cheese, in a casserole or Dutch oven.
5. Bring to a simmer on the stove top, then place in oven to braise for ~45 mins, or until fennel is soft but holds it’s shape. If the liquid boils away, add more stock or water if you run out of stock.
6. Raise oven temp to 425 F (220 C).
7. Remove fennel from pot and cut out the core. Then cut fennel into half or quarter-length pieces.
8. Place fennel in baking dish or souffle pan, overlapping the slices.
9. Cover with any liquid left over from the pan and sprinkle with cheese.
10. Dot the top with butter (or drizzle with olive oil).
11. Cover with foil and bake ~15 mins or until cheese melts.
12. Uncover and bake until the top browns ~7 mins.