Cookbook:Fennel

| Spices and herbs

Fennel is a plant used as both a vegetable and a spice.

Characteristics
All types of fennel have green stalks and feathery dill-like leaves. After flowering, they produce small, elongated seeds with a brownish color and ridges around the outside. However, broadly speaking, there are three primary varieties of fennel used in cooking:


 * Bitter fennel: tall and thin; seed has slightly bitter taste much like celery seed; generally less widely available worldwide
 * Sweet fennel: mild anise flavor from anethole content; becomes increasingly bitter with age; seeds, leaves, and stalks are used
 * Florence fennel/bulb fennel/finoccio: sweet variety with a large, bulbous stem base; very mild anise flavor and sometimes called "sweet anise";  used primarily as a vegetable

Seasonality
Peak fennel season is fall through late winter and early spring.

Selection and storage
When selecting fresh fennel, either for bulbs, stalks, or leaves, look for vibrant color without browning. The leaves should be fresh with no wilting. Bulbs should be firm, with no cracking.

Store fresh fennel in a perforated plastic bag in the fridge. It will last for several days. Discard if you see any sliminess. Dried seeds should be stored in an airtight container away from light, heat, and moisture.

Preparation
The part of fennel requiring the most preparation is the fresh bulb. You'll want to first cut off any stalks and roots still attached. Many people remove the outer part of the bulb, either by removing the entire layer or by using a vegetable peeler to remove a thinner layer. You can also either remove or keep the core—it is firmer than the rest, but it is edible. If leaving it in, your slices will hold together.

Use
All parts of fennel are used in cooking. The seeds are used in Italian, Eastern European, South Asian, and East Asian cuisines,  where they provide a licorice-like flavor. Even the pollen is used as a flavoring. The bulb is used as a vegetable, both raw and cooked—it has a mild vegetal flavor that is well suited to both raw applications like salad and cooked applications such as braising. The leaves may be used as an herb and garnish, and the stalks can be treated like those of celery.

Substitution
Bitter and sweet fennel cannot be readily substituted for each other due to their different flavor profiles. Celery seed is a better substitute for the bitter fennel seed typically used in Central/Eastern European cuisine.