Spice Nest
What follows is a Spice Nest article that focuses on the popular culinary spice fennel and some of its uses.
Fennel
Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) is an umbelliferous herb (hardy perennial), that has small yellow flowers and feathery leaves. Fennel grows wild in most areas of temperate Europe particularly near the sea coast and river banks. Fennel is generally indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea but has spread eastwards to India and beyond as well as having migrated to the Americas, Australia and New Zealand.
Fennel is a member of the Apiaceae family of herbs and is highly aromatic and strong flavoured. Fennel is a popular herb with many culinary as well as medicinal uses. It is one of the main ingredients of the alcololic beverage absinthe. The fruit of the plant is a small green seed that ripens and swells before drying to a brown colour. These seeds are harvested while swollen and green and dried in the sun to retain their fullest flavour, which is often described as a combination of anise and liquorice.
When used as a herb, the soft, feathery green leaves are used chopped into salads or soups and have a mild anise flavour. The variant known popularly as Florence Fennel (in Italy as finocchio) has a self-blanched swollen base, or bulb that is used as a vegetable either raw in salads or cooked in many Mediterranean dishes. Florence fennel is a major ingredient in many Italian as well as German salads. It these cases, it is often tossed with chicory and avocado. It can also be braised and served as a side dish, blanched or marinated and cooked in risotto.
The seeds are used to flavour many different dishes in a variety or worldwide culinary situations. Fennel seeds can be confused with those of anise (aniseed), as they are similar in taste and appearance, although smaller. It is common in India to chew fennel seeds (saunf) as a mouth freshener.
Fennel is often featured in Italian cuisine, in which the bulbs and leaves are used both raw and cooked in salads, side dishes, pastas and risottos. Fennel seed is also a common ingredient in many Italian sausages and meatballs. Fennel is also used to spice northern European rye breads.
Indian cuisine as well as that of the Middle East incorporates fennel seed as a spice in many of their culinary traditions. Fennel is a major ingredient in the Bengali/Oriya spice mixture known as panch phoron. Fennel is also an ingredient of Chinese five spice powder. In Hindi and Urdu, fennel is known as saunf or mauti saunf. In Bengali fennel is known as mouri. In Tamil and Malayalam languages, fennel is known as shombu or peruncheeragam. In parts of India the roasted fennel seeds are chewed as an after meal digestive and breath freshner.
Fresh or dried fennel leaves are used in many egg, fish, and other dishes.
Medicinal and Health Uses of Fennel
In some natural toothpastes, fennel is used as a flavouring. It can be employed as a diuretic and it can also be used to improve the milk supply of breastfeeding mothers. However, caution must be observed as fennel has shown neurotoxicity in a few cases where nursing mothers have used it as an herbal tea.
Janice White
Spice Nest
