This dish you can prepare ahead of time is easy to create and will impress your visitors. You do not have to explain how basic it is.
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 8 servings |
Ingredients
- 4 bulbs fennel, untrimmed
- 1 ¾ cups chicken broth
- 4 ounces Gorgonzola cheese
- 2 tablespoons dried bread crumbs
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Rinse fennel. Trim off stems, and reserve about 1 cup of the tender green leaves. Trim any bruises or dry looking areas from fennel. Cut each bulb in half from stem through root end.
- Lay fennel bulb pieces in a 10 inch frying pan, and add broth. Cover, and bring to a boil on high heat. Simmer until fennel is tender when pierced, 20 to 25 minutes. Transfer fennel to a shallow casserole, 9 to 10 inched wide; lay cut side up.
- Boil broth, uncovered, on high heat until reduced to about 1/2 cup. Stir in about half the fennel leaves. Spoon mixture evenly over fennel.
- Mash cheese with bread crumbs. Dot mixture evenly over fennel. If making ahead, cover and chill up to 1 day. Also wrap remaining fennel leaves in a towel, seal in a plastic bag, and chill.
- Bake casserole, uncovered, at 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) until cheese begins to brown and fennel is hot, about 20 minutes. Tuck remaining leaves around fennel. Season to taste with salt.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 101 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 10 g |
| Cholesterol | 15 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 4 g |
| Protein | 6 g |
| Saturated Fat | 3 g |
| Sodium | 380 mg |
| Sugars | 0 g |
| Fat | 5 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
We don’t like gorgonzola so I used parmesan. We absolutely love fennel, I grow it. I always order it in my CSA box when they have it and have cooked it dozens of ways. I plan to make it again trying until I find just the right cheese so complement and not combat the flavor of the fennel. I also plan to cut the broth down and add some white wine. I think shallots halved and cooked with it would be nice and possibly some fresh bacon bits on top.
My son-in-law has made this or every Thanksgiving for several years. It is always a big hit with usually none left. The downside is that he lives in Oregon and fennel is very expensive this time of year. He went to school in Santa Barbara, California where it grows abundantly along the highways, so it is a bit painful to think that there it is free and it is about $4.00 per pound in Oregon.
This was an excellent and easy use of Fennel. We topped this with a mix of Gorgonzola and Feta with Fresh Garlic. The Feta helped tone down the Gorgonzola and allowed the delicate sweet Ainse flavor of the fennel to come through.
I personally loved the combination of the gorgonzola and fennel. My husband found it to be a winner too. I prepared it for some friends and well some loved it, others didn’t like the combination of the cheese with fennel, but I think it’s because they aren’t fennel fans to begin with….
This was the first time I ever cooked fennel. We have always eaten it thinly sliced and very cold as an appetizer. I followed the directions except had to add a bit more broth and cook longer because I used a simmer that was too slow. We served it with a slice of left over pizza and it was a great combination. I plan to serve it at Christmas to surprise the children.
I felt the Gorgonzola completely masked the flavor of the fennel and did not go well with the licorice taste of the fennel at all.