Chickpea Pasta with Roasted Fennel, Carrots, and Corn

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market, held between 10 am - 2 pm on the corner of Agate and 19th Ave., you'll find bountiful summer produce from Camas Swale Farm and pastured meat and poultry from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm.

This past week we had a work potluck picnic. I took inspiration from the Camas Swale farm stand and decided to combine roasted corn and fennel into a pasta dish for a crowd that could be eaten warm or at room temperature.

One of my favorite pasta dishes is with chickpeas, so I riffed on this (as I did last year), cooking the pasta in the chickpea broth for extra flavor. This version, with caramelized fennel and shallots for sweetness and feta cheese for a salty kick, was especially delicious.

Chickpea Pasta with Roasted Fennel, Carrots, and Corn

serves a crowd (about 12)

1 pound dried chickpeas
2 garlic cloves
bay leaf
1 pound small pasta such as shells
1 lemon
2 ears corn
1 fennel bulb 
2 large shallots or small onions
6 carrots
olive oil
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
aleppo pepper to taste
3 ounces feta cheese, diced
fennel fronds and basil leaves for garnish

1. Cook the chickpeas. I've been cooking mine in a pressure cooker, but you can also do it on the stove top. Soak the chickpeas overnight in the pressure cooker insert pot in 6 cups water and 2 tsp Kosher salt. The next day, add 2 cloves of garlic peeled and sliced, 1 bay leaf, and a drizzle of olive oil. Cook on high pressure for 20 minutes, allowing the pressure to release naturally when done. If you haven't presoaked the chickpeas, cook on high pressure for 45 minutes and test if they are done (this time mine needed to go another 5 minutes). Place a strainer over a large bowl and drain the chickpeas, collecting the broth (you should have about 4 cups). Discard the bay leaf. Reserve 3 cups of cooked chickpeas for this dish and save the rest for other uses. 

2. Cook the pasta in the reserved chickpea broth. I do this in a pressure cooker as well. Taste the broth and add more salt if needed and add more water if needed to achieve a volume of 4 cups. Add the pasta to the pressure cooker insert pot and pour in the broth. Cook on high pressure for 5 minutes. When the cooking is complete, hit cancel and carefully release the pressure. Remove the lid and stir the pasta into the remaining broth. Cover and allow the pasta to completely absorb the broth for about 5 minutes. Zest and juice the lemon and stir both the zest and juice into the pasta.

3. Meanwhile, set the oven to 450 degrees and start roasting the pasta components. On a sheet pan, combine the 3 cups drained chickpeas with 1 tsp cumin seeds, 1/2 tsp fennel seeds, salt, aleppo pepper, and a generous drizzle of olive oil. Mix to coat and roast the chickpeas until the become golden brown and crispy, about 20 minutes. Mix the roasted chickpeas in with the pasta.

4. Shuck the ears of corn and place them in a cast iron skillet in the oven. Roast, rotating, until they become slightly charred in places. Remove to a cutting board to cool and then cut the kernels from the ears and reserve. 

5. Thinly slice the fennel bulb and shallots. Toss with olive oil and salt on a sheet pan and roast, stirring occasionally, until they start to brown, about 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and toss with the corn kernels.

6. Slice the carrots on the diagonal into ovals. On the chickpea sheet, toss the carrots with the remaining cumin and fennel seeds, salt, aleppo pepper, and olive oil. Roast, flipping occasionally until soft and browned at the edges, about 10 minutes. Combine with the roasted fennel, shallots, and corn.

7. To serve, spread the pasta and chickpeas on a large serving platter. Layer over the roasted vegetables and all of their flavored olive oil. Top with diced feta cheese and garnish with torn fennel fronds and basil leaves. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Spring Salad with Creamy Lemon Fennel Dressing

Visit the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market this Sunday from 10 am - 2 pm at the corner of Agate and 19th Ave for a wide selection of fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm and pastured meat and poultry from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm. 

Camas Swale has a eye popping selection of crunchy spring vegetables -- cucumbers, snap peas, fennel bulb, and turnips -- to layer on a bed of their purple tipped butterhead lettuce. For salad dressing, I usually make a miso vinaigrette, sometimes with tahini for more creaminess. But for an extra decadent treat I decided to whip up a creamy lemon and fennel frond dressing based on this recipe.

This creamy salad was the perfect accompaniment to Turkish stuffed flatbreads called pide, made with Fair Valley Farm ground lamb. And once people started drizzling the dressing on their plates, they found it also went well with roasted cauliflower, garlic scapes, and chickpeas, or just eaten with a spoon.

Creamy Lemon Fennel Dressing

adapted from CreamTea's food52 recipe

1 lemon
2 tablespoons crème fraîche or sour cream
Fine sea salt to taste
1/2 teaspoon mild honey
1-2 tablespoons minced fennel fronds
5 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

Grate the lemon with a zester and set zest aside. Halve lemon and juice one of the halves.

Whisk crème fraîche or sour cream, lemon juice, zest, salt, and honey together until smooth.

While whisking, add olive oil in a thin stream until blended.

Add fennel fronds and whisk again to incorporate. Taste and adjust seasoning (salt, lemon juice, honey) as needed.

Serve the dressing over a salad of crunchy spring vegetables and butterhead lettuce.

Caramelized Fennel on Ravioli Alfredo

At the Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market this week you'll find pastured meats and eggs from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm and fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm, including lots of melons, tomatoes, corn, basil, parsley, and fennel.

To make a garnish for a pound of Hideaway Bakery ravioli, I experimented with deeply caramelizing diced fennel bulb like shallots or scallions, cooked well past "glassy," almost to the point of "burnt." This treatment mellowed the anise flavor and brought out a nutty sweetness that added complexity to a rich cream sauce, once again proving the utility of the Maillard reaction. 

Caramelized Fennel

1 fennel bulb
1 Tbsp olive oil 
1 Tbsp butter
salt and pepper to taste

Wash and trim the fennel bulb, reserving the fronts for stock or garnish. Cut the bulb like an onion into a 1/4 inch dice. Heat a skillet over medium heat. When it is hot, add the oil and butter. When the butter foams, add the diced fennel and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring frequently and watching it like a hawk to ensure that the fennel pieces brown nicely but do not burn, about 15 minutes. Remove from heat, taste and season with more salt and pepper, and serve on top of your favorite pasta or grain dish.

Pasta with Yogurt and Caramelized Leeks, Fennel, and Celery Root

This Sunday will be the penultimate Farmers Market of the season, so come out despite the rain. You will find fresh eggs and pastured chicken, beef, pork, and lamb from Fair Valley Farm and Fog Hollow Farm and an abundance of fresh produce from Camas Swale Farm, including a large selection of winter squash, leafy greens, onions, shallots, and leeks, and root vegetables such as beets, carrots, fennel, and celery root.

With my selection of root vegetables from last weekend's market, I decided to try a version of this recipe for creamy pasta topped with caramelized onions. This is the kind of recipe that is ridiculously easy (just coat pasta in Greek yogurt, of which I had just made a big batch in my new instant pot) and amenable to many variations, as long as you have enough sweet caramelized flavors to balance the tang of the yogurt sauce. We loved the notes of fennel and celery along with the caramelized leeks.

Pasta with Yogurt and Caramelized Leeks, Fennel, and Celery Root

adapted from Diane Kochilas' recipe, serves 4 to 6

4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 large or 2 small leeks
1 small fennel bulb
1 small celery root
Sea salt
1 1/2 cups (350 g) thick, strained Greek-style yogurt (see note)
1 pound pasta
1 cup coarsely grated Pecorino Romano 

1. Place a baking sheet in the oven and start preheating it to 375 degrees F. Prepare the vegetables. Trim the roots and green parts from the leek, halve lengthwise, rinse well, and cut into 1/2 inch slices. Trim the fennel bulb and cut into 1/2 inch cubes. Peel and trim the celery root and cut into 1/2 inch cubes. In a large bowl, toss the vegetables with the olive oil and a generous sprinkling of salt to coat. Spread the oiled vegetables onto the preheated sheet pan. Cook the vegetables, stirring frequently, until the vegetables become nicely brown and caramelized around the edges.

2. Meanwhile, fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. As the water heats, add enough salt so that you can taste it. Add the pasta and cook until soft, not al dente. Reserve 1/2 cup pasta water. 

3. Combine the yogurt with 1/4 cup cooking water and mix well. Add more of the reserved pasta water as needed to get the sauce to your thickness. Drain the pasta and toss with the yogurt mixture and 1/2 cup grated Pecorino Romano cheese. 

4. Serve the pasta immediately, sprinkled generously with cheese and topped with the caramelized vegetables. 

Fennel, White Bean, and Tuna Gratin

Sunday should be sunny and a perfect day for a stroll to the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market to pick up some colorful produce from Camas Swale Farm and recapture the fleeting flavors of summer.

Last week I picked up a fennel bulb, which I love to cook in a fennel and sardine pasta with lemony breadcrumbs. But then this recipe for a white bean and tuna gratin caught my fancy, because it reminded me both of a favorite white bean and tuna salad and Julia Child's salmon gratin from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, volume 1, which my mother used to cook as a regular weeknight meal. Certain of my childhood dishes don't translate well to my children's taste, who prefer bright, fresh flavors to cream sauces. I've already reengineered Julia's dish of a creamy gratin, laced with white vermouth and sprinkling of gruyere cheese, as salmon and barely cakes, but truth be told, frying patties is more work than sticking a casserole in the oven. I liked the idea of including legumes in a gratin and lightening it up with fennel and lemon. 

This is the resulting dish, packed with fragrant fennel and topped with a crunchy lemony bread crumb and gruyere crust. It was delicious eaten with kamut and roasted broccoli and red peppers, fresh from the farm.

Fennel, White Bean, and Tuna Gratin

served four

1 fennel bulb
1 small onion or 2 shallots
3 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp flour
1 tin tuna in olive oil
1 cup milk, heated to just below scalding
1/4 cup white vermouth
juice from 1 small lemon
3 cups cooked white beans (from 1 cup dried, or 2 15 ounce cans)
salt and pepper to taste
1/2 cup grated gruyere cheese
1 cup bread crumbs
1 handful fennel fronds
zest from 1 small lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Dice the fennel bulb and the onion and reserve a few fennel fronds for the bread crumb topping. Zest and juice 1 small lemon. Combine the bread crumbs, lemon zest, chopped fennel fronds, and gruyere and reserve.

2. Heat a large skillet and melt the butter. Add the diced fennel and sauté until glassy. Add the diced onion and sauté until both are very soft, about 10 minutes. Add the olive oil from the tuna tin, then add the flour and whisk into the fat. Continue whisking as you slowly add the hot milk to make a light roux. Add the white vermouth and lemon juice. Generously salt and pepper. Remove from the heat and gently fold in the white beans and tuna. 

3. Pour the white bean and tuna mixture into a 9 inch square oven proof dish. Top with the bread crumb mixture.  Bake at 425 degrees for about 30 minutes, until the mixture is bubbling and the bread crumb topping is nicely browned. Serve with whole grains such as wheat berries, barley, or kamut.

Roasted Fennel and Anchovy Pizza

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market you can look forward to pastured meets from Fair Valley Farm and fresh produce from Sweetwater Farm. For the past several weeks, Sweetwater Farm has had delicate fennel bulbs, which are wonderful paired with strong flavored seafood, as in this fennel and sardine pasta.

I'd picked up a fennel bulb at the market with plans for a quick Monday night pasta dinner, but under pressure from a powerful pizza lobby in the household, I mixed up a batch of Jim Lahey's no-knead pizza dough on Sunday evening instead. The next evening, when looking around for interesting toppings, I came across the bulb and realized it would be a perfect addition to an anchovy pizza. I slid our cast iron griddle into the preheating oven, sliced the fennel bulb, tossed it with olive oil and salt, and then spread it onto the hot griddle to sear. 

A few minutes in the preheating oven produced caramelized and soften fennel that melded beautifully with pungent anchovies and fresh basil on my new favorite pizza.

Roasted Fennel and Anchovy Pizza

1 recipe of Jim Lahey's no-knead pizza dough (makes four small pizzas)
tomato sauce (preferably made with fresh romas)
I small fennel bulb per pizza
olive oil and salt
6 to 8 anchovy fillets per pizza
fresh mozzarella balls, sliced
red pepper flakes
handful of basil leaves

Preheat the oven to 500 degrees and insert a cast iron griddle or baking sheet to preheat. On another shelf, place a pizza stone if you are using one. Trim the fronds from the fennel bulb and slice the bulb into thin wedges. Toss the fennel pieces in a drizzle of olive oil to coat and sprinkle with sea salt. When the pan is hot, spread the fennel pieces over it in a single layer. Roast the fennel pieces for about 8 minutes, until nicely browned, then flip and roast for another 3 to 5 minutes on the second side until they are soft through.

Divide the dough into four balls, flour them lightly, and shape them according to Lahey's instructions (or use a rolling pin to roll them out on a silicone mat). Sprinkle polenta on a baking sheet or pizza peel and place the pizza dough on top. If you like a crisper crust, pre-bake the crust for about 5 minutes. Spread a thin layer of tomato sauce over the dough, distribute over the roasted fennel, anchovies, and basil leaves. Sprinkle with red pepper flakes and distribute over the sliced mozzarella. Bake for about 8 to 10 minutes until the crust in browned and the cheese is bubbling. Enjoy.

Fennel and Sardine Pasta

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market you can look forward to the following offerings from Sweetwater Farm and Fair Valley Farm:

green, yellow wax, and romano beans (try this bean salad with almonds and apricots)
blueberries

tomatoes and fennel (make the pasta dish below)
squash blossoms, baby squash, and zucchini

celery and kohlrabi (great in kimchi)
cucumbers and carrots (make some spring rolls)

broccoli and cauliflower (nice grilled in packets with beets) 

cilantro, Italian parsley, and 1 lb bags of basil (make pesto)
bell and cayenne peppers

fresh spring garlic and Red Long of Tropea onions (delicious grilled on pizza)

kale, chard, collards (make a chard and bacon tart)
variety of lettuces including iceberg lettuce
sunflowers and cardoon flowers

dried beans and grains from Camus Country Mill

jams, salsa, and pickles from Sweet Creek Foods

pastured chickens (try spatchocked)

Fennel is the backbone of one of my favorite quick pantry pasta dishes with bright and refreshing flavors that are perfect for a warm summer evening. This recipe illustrates some principles of a well-stocked pantry. First, no pantry is complete without a supply of tomatoes, and the absolute best are freshly preserved (here I used some of my stash of Sweetwater Farm romas frozen last summer). Next, always keep on hand a collection of canned fish,including sardines, salmon, tuna, anchovies, and smoked trout. Lemons and garlic are necessities. And finally, I like to keep a frozen supply of fresh breadcrumbs, which are easily made from the stale ends of Eugene City Bakery baguette run through the grater blade of your food processor. Then all you need to do is pick up a fennel bulb at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market, and you have a delicious midweek meal lined up to go. 

Linguine with Sardines, Fennel and Tomato

adapted closely from lastnightsdinner at food52

1 tin sardines packed in olive oil (about 4 ¼ oz.)
extra virgin olive oil
2-3 fat cloves of garlic, peeled, smashed, and roughly chopped
1 small or ½ large bulb fennel, fronds reserved
1/4 teaspoon red chile flakes, or more to taste
2 cups peeled tomatoes (~12 romas) with their juice, gently crushed 
2 ounces white (dry) vermouth
1 medium lemon, juice and zest
1/3 cup toasted bread crumbs
1 lb pounds dry linguine

1. Bring a very large pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Trim the fennel and slice the bulb very thinly. 

2. Open the sardine tin and drain the oil into a wide skillet (the amount of oil in the tin will vary by brand, so add additional extra virgin olive oil if necessary to make up 2 tablespoons). Warm the oil over medium-low heat and add the garlic, cooking until fragrant. 

3. Add the sliced fennel to the skillet with a sprinkle of salt, raise the heat to medium, and cook until the fennel is soft and beginning to caramelize. Add the chile flakes and let them sizzle for a minute, just until fragrant, then add the tomatoes with their juice. Cook until the liquid is reduced, then add the vermouth and let that reduce slightly. 

4. Add the sardines to the skillet with the tomato and fennel mixture, breaking up slightly but leaving some chunks. 

5. Add the linguine to the boiling salted water, cooking it until it is just short of al dente. 

6. As the pasta cooks, prepare the breadcrumb topping. Zest the lemon. Mince some of the fennel fronds. If using frozen fresh breadcrumbs, toast them lightly in a toasting oven or dry skillet. Combine a tablespoon or so of zest, along with a teaspoon of minced fennel fronds, with the toasted breadcrumbs, then set aside. 

7. Juice the lemon and add the juice to the pan. Taste and adjust salt if necessary. 

8. When the linguine is just short of al dente, use tong s to transfer to the sauce to finish cooking, adding a little bit of the starchy pasta water if necessary, and tossing gently to combine. (You'll want the sauce to be a little soupy, as the breadcrumbs will soak up the liquid and dry the pasta out a bit once you've added them.) 

9. Transfer the pasta and sauce to a large warmed serving bowl (or individual pasta bowls), add a drizzle of olive oil, sprinkle on the toasted breadcrumb-lemon zest mixture, and garnish with picked small fennel fronds and the remaining lemon zest.

Mixed Vegetable Refrigerator Pickles with Fennel

This Sunday at the Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market, you can expect to find the following offerings from Sweetwater Farm and Fair Valley Farm:

• blueberries and marionberries (bake a cobbler)
• many varieties of greens and cabbage (saute with beans)
• fennel (make pickles, see below)
• carrots, turnips, and potatoes
• broccoli and cauliflower
• zucchini
• peppers and tomatoes (make some fresh salsa for fish tacos)
• fresh herbs, including basil and parsley
• onions and garlic
• tomato sauce and pesto (make fresh pasta)
• pickles and sauerkraut
• homemade jams
• fresh eggs
• pastured chicken (try spatchcocking)
• pork chops, pork roast, ham, ground pork, ground sausage meat, and bacon (treat yourself to a summer BLT)
• lamb (try these gozleme)

Sweetwater Farm's tender, young fennel bulbs are a summer treat. I love fennel raw sliced or grated in salads, roasted, or sautéed in a seafood pasta sauce. This past week I experimented with a new approach of pickling fennel with other summer vegetables, following this recipe from food52, and it was delicious. Along with the fennel, I used a combination of Sweetwater Farm’s zucchini, summer squash, carrots, and cauliflower.

The zucchini and summer squash spears got a salty ice water bath to crisp them up, and then everyone got nestled into their pint jars and doused with a salty sweet vinegar brine flavored with mustard and fennel seeds, turmeric, and red pepper flakes. It was hard to resist eating them right away, but these refrigerator pickles definitely improved with a few days' soak. All of the vegetables were delicious, but my favorite was the fennel with its firm crunch and strong anise flavor asserting itself over the sharp vinegar brine. These are great paired with a sharp cheese as a pre-dinner snack so that you can savor the sunshine a little longer before getting dinner on the table.

Mixed Vegetable Refrigerator Pickles with Fennel

Adapted from AshleyRodriguez at food52


Makes 4 pint jars



4 small zucchini
 or summer squash

1 large or several small carrots


1 fennel bulb (with fronds attached)


4 garlic cloves, peeled and quartered


2 tsp fennel seed


2 tsp mustard seed

1 tsp turmeric powder


½ teaspoon chili flakes


3 tablespoons kosher salt, divided


1 ¼ cup water


2 ½ cups apple cider vinegar


¼ cup sugar

1. Wash and cut the summer squash into spears that fit the height of the jars you are using. Place the spears in a bowl with ice water and sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of the salt. Let sit for 30 minutes to an hour. This will keep the spears crisp when pickled.

2. If using small carrots, simply scrub and trim their fronts and tips, or for larger ones, peel them and cut them into spears. Wash and slice the fennel in ¼-inch pieces, reserving the fennel fronds. Wash and separate the cauliflower into small florets.

3. In a saucepan combine the spices, 2 Tbsp of salt, sugar, vinegar, and water. Bring to a simmer, and then turn off heat.

4. Place the cut vegetables in 4 clean pint jars. Add a chopped garlic clove and a couple pieces of fennel frond to the jars.

5. Carefully pour the hot brine over the vegetables until submerged. Cover and refrigerate for at least one day. Well sealed refrigerator pickles will keep for 1 month.

Salmon on the Rocks

If you are wondering what to serve at your next dinner party, I have a recommendation: salmon roasted on a bed of rock salt. This recipe, which I adapted from Corey Schreiber's Wildwood: Cooking from the Source in the Pacific Northwest, is a surefire way to prepare a succulent, crowd-pleasing fillet of fish. The salt magically distributes the heat so that the fish is moist and evenly cooked, with a pleasant but not aggressive saltiness infused through the skin. Here was the menu for a successful Friday night dinner party, much of which I cooked ahead on Thursday evening:

first course
Red lentil soup (this recipe, made the day before)

main course

Herbed salmon roasted on rock salt (below)

Golden hulless barley risotto with fennel, leeks, and celeriac (similar to this, partially cooked the day before, then finished with more broth and grated parmasan)

Kale salad with roasted squash, almonds, and cheddar (similar to this and this, all the components prepped the day before)

dessert

Chocolate espresso cheesecake from Eugene City Bakery

Herbed Salmon Roasted on Rock Salt

adapted from Corey Schreiber

1 or several large salmon fillet(s) (calculate about 6 ounces per person)

salt and freshly ground black pepper

rock salt (also sold as ice cream salt) for baking

for each salmon fillet, prepare an herb mixture with:
zest from 1 large lemon (use a microplane grater to zest)
1 handful fennel fronds
1 handful Italian parsley leaves

Before your guests arrive, take your salmon out of the refrigerator. Find a baking dish large enough to hold the salmon and cover the bottom of the dish completely with rock salt. Place the salmon, skin side down, on the bed of rock salt. Lightly salt and generously pepper the flesh side of the salmon fillet. Chop the fennel fronts and parsley leaves and combine with the lemon zest. Spread the herb mixture over the fish, cover the pan with plastic wrap, and set aside.

When your guests have all arrived, preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Just before you serve the first course, put the salmon in the oven. Bake for about 35 minutes until the fish is opaque on the top, but still slightly translucent inside. Remove the fish from the oven and let sit for 5 minutes or so (it will continue cooking). Bring the whole fish on the rock salt bed to the table and serve.

Celeriac and Fennel Remoulade

With rain forecast, there will be no extra Fairmount Neighborhood Farmers Market tomorrow, but perhaps you are lucky enough to have some remaining root vegetables from last week, like these formidable-looking celeriac from Sweetwater Farm. 

A traditional French preparation for celeriac (celery root) is remoulade, in which the raw vegetable is shredded and dressed with mayonnaise. Looking for a lighter version of this dish, I experimented with adding in some shredded fennel root and dressing the fresh vegetables with a simple mustard and lemon vinaigrette. 

The resulting remoulade was refreshingly crunchy with just a hint of anise flavor from the fennel and plenty of mustard punch that made it a nice accompaniment for fish fillets. This would also make a nice salad for a holiday meal as a contrast to the traditional spread of rich and creamy side dishes.

Celeriac and Fennel Remoulade

1 medium sized celeriac root
1 large or a couple small fennel bulbs
1 Tbsp dijon mustard
1 Tbsp white wine vinegar
2 Tbsp lemon juice
6 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper to taste.


1. Use a knife to trim away the hairy outside of the celery root, and cut into chunks that fit into a food processor funnel. Cut off the stalks and trim the fennel bulb and cut into similar sized pieces. Shred in a food processor. Transfer to a bowl and toss with a tablespoon of lemon juice to prevent discoloration.


2. Whisk the mustard, vinegar, remaining lemon juice, and olive oil together. Pour over the shredded celeriac and fennel, mix, and adjust seasoning.