Pasta with Roasted Fennel

Here is the first of many recipes to come: Penne with Roasted Fennel. It was cheap, it was delicious, it was (mostly vegetarian), and it was easy to make.

This recipe came from the Irish Cheap Eats site. The recipe, as I copied it down:

Pasta with Roasted Fennel

Serves 2-3

Ingredients

• About 200g penne pasta
• 1 head of fennel, chopped, discarding the core and stringy parts
• 1 onion, peeled, quartered and sliced
• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds, roasted
• 100ml chicken stock
• A large handful of chopped parsley
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper

1. Roast the chopped onion and fennel in olive oil for about 20 mins, or until the fennel begins to turn slightly crisp at the edges.
2. Meanwhile, dry fry the fennel seeds over a medium heat for a few minutes (you could also grind in a spice grinder or pestle and mortar, but only dry frying releases the aniseed flavour and sweet aromas).
3. As the fennel comes close to being ready, cook your pasta – it’s ready when it’s tender but still has a bite.
4. Drain the pasta, add the onion and fennel mix, 100g of warm chicken stock, and the parsley. Mix well, add a good seasoning of salt and pepper, and serve.

Of course, I had to make modifications as I found them. I went to three supermarkets and couldn't find fennel seeds, for example.

Here are all of the ingredients: Penne pasta, fennel, onion, parsley, olive oil and chicken stock.

I first cut the onion and fennel into small pieces.

The directions said to 'roast' for 20 mins, but 6 minutes on high started caramelizing the vegetables. I turned the heat down and started boiling water for the pasta.

Because I didn't have a large enough pot, I used two smaller ones.

After the pasta had drained, I mixed the chicken stock pot with a glass of water and microwaved it to get the stock to dissolve.

Finally, I tossed the pasta, onion and fennel, chicken stock and parsley together.

There was even enough for dinner the next night!

I would definitely make this dish again.

It could be made gluten free if gluten free pasta was used and vegetarian if a vegetarian stock is used instead, or no stock is used at all. I don't believe it made a difference to the taste.

This was my first time trying fennel and it looked like and tasted a lot like onion, though they do not seem to be related at all. The taste was probably influenced by the onions cooking along side the fennel.

My modified recipe:

Pasta with Roasted Fennel

Serves 2-3

Ingredients

• About 200g penne pasta
• 1 head of fennel, chopped, discarding the core and stringy parts
• 1 onion, peeled, quartered and sliced
• 100ml chicken stock
• Parsley 
• Olive oil

1. Roast the chopped onion and fennel in olive oil on HIGH for about 5 mins
2. As the fennel comes close to being ready, cook your pasta – it’s ready when it’s tender but still has a bite.
3. Drain the pasta, add the onion and fennel mix, and 100g of warm chicken stock. Mix well, add a good seasoning of parsley, and serve.

Penne, 250g: EUR 0.99 at Lidl

Parsley, 1/20 of a 10 gram bottle @ EUR 0.35/ bottle = EUR 0.02 at Tesco
Chicken Stock Pots, 1 of a package of 4 @ EUR 1.99/ package = EUR 0.50 at Lidl
One Onion, 0.2 kg @ EUR 1.39/kg = EUR 0.28 at Tesco
Fennel: EUR 1.49 at Tesco
Olive Oil, 1/20 of a 1L bottle at EUR 3.99/bottle = EUR 0.20 at Aldi
Total Cost: EUR 3.48 for two dinner servings or EUR 1.74 for one serving