Hello lovelies,
fennel can do more than salad and risotto, and this recipe is the proof: my caramelized fennel on lemon ricotta is an appetizer in which the vegetable is fried in butter and brown sugar until soft, sweet and salty, and then lands on a bed of airy whipped ricotta. Add toasted almonds, lemon zest, the fennel fronds and a piece of bread for scooping, and that is all it needs.
Cooked fennel you mostly know from me creamy, as a vegan fennel risotto with pears, which has been an autumn classic in our house for years. Caramelized it is something else entirely: the anise note softens, the sugar brings dark charred edges, and the wedges take on something of fried onions, only fresher.
Fennel and ricotta
What matters is that the fennel takes on color in the pan before the sugar goes in. Butter, medium heat, little turning, 8 to 10 minutes of patience, and only then sprinkle the brown sugar over and let it turn glossy for a few more minutes. If you prefer the bulb raw and crunchy, my fennel arugula salad with pear and feta is the counterpart to this plate.
The ricotta is whipped with olive oil, lemon zest, salt and pepper for 1 to 2 minutes until it looks like a pale mousse. Spread over the plate it is the cool, creamy base the warm fennel rests on. And because 2 bulbs always leave a little over, the rest goes into my mushroom fennel risotto with smoked tofu the next day.
I toast the almonds roughly chopped in the small pan until they smell nutty, which takes 3 minutes. They give the soft fennel its bite, the fronds bring the fresh herbal note, and the drizzle of olive oil at the end ties it all together. Serve with baguette or focaccia, because the ricotta wants to be scooped up.
Once you like ricotta as a base for starters, try it cold with oranges next in my beetroot salad with oranges and ricotta, which is the winter version of this idea.
And as the main course after this fennel, our choice is the pumpkin pizza with ricotta and caramelized onions, so the whole evening stays sweet and salty. Tell me whether the fennel won over the skeptics at your table too.
