Fennel belongs to the Umbelliferae family, also called Apiaceae. This family includes approximately 250 genres and over 2,500 species. Most of these are typical cold season plants. They can be identified by their abundant content in aromatic substances and seeds that contain essential oils that are responsible for their aroma and flavour.<\/p>\n
The plant is considered native to the Mediterranean area, but grows wild in most of the European continent, in uncultivated fields and coastal areas.<\/p>\n
Common fennel is essentially used; seeds, stems and chopped leaves are used and the bulb as a vegetable.<\/p>\n
Mentions of fennel can be found in Greek and Latin literature, they reference fennel branches placed on the doors of households to ward off spirits. It is believed that it was the Romans who began to use it as food. They used the seeds to flavour their meat sauces and are the fresh sprouts raw.<\/p>\n
Among its nutritional properties, fennel, like other vegetables, has lots of fibre, carbohydrates and few calories. It contains folate, vitamin B3, provitamin A, potassium and some phosphorus, calcium and magnesium.<\/p>\n
serves 4<\/p>\n
2 fennel stalks or bulbs
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t salt, pepper
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t1 tbsp olive oil
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t1 tbsp lemon juice
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t1 tbsp meat stock (optional)\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Trim fennel, discarding feathery top, and split in half.
\nWash and put in shallow earthenware casserole with whatever water clings to it.
\nSeason with salt and pepper, sprinkle with olive oil and lemon juice. If you wish, 1 tablespoon meat stock may be added.
\nCover and cook in a medium oven (175\u00baC) until tender (about 30 minutes). Or cook on top of the stove in a covered pan, adding \u00bd cup of water or stock.
\nSimmer for 20 to 30 minutes; remove the cover for the last 5 minutes to reduce the liquid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2554,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","recipe_category":[],"class_list":["post-2560","cp_recipe","type-cp_recipe","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietamediterranea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cooked_recipe\/2560\/"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietamediterranea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cooked_recipe\/"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietamediterranea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cp_recipe\/"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietamediterranea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2\/"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietamediterranea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments\/?post=2560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietamediterranea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2554\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dietamediterranea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/?parent=2560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cp_recipe_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dietamediterranea.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/recipe_category\/?post=2560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}