Fennel with Ham

This Italian recipe is an ideal second course but if you use a smaller quantity of ham is also an ideal side dish. It is simply prepared with these two main Italian ingredients: fennels and ham squared cut with the addition of Italian cheese that give them a spicy taste.
Fennels preferentially grow in the southern part of Italy where the seeds of fennel are usually used to season meat, in particular sausage and other Italian dish. Instead the Italian cheese that I use in this recipe is Asiago. Its name comes from the town of Asiago, province of Vicenza, in the Veneto region where different types of Asiago are produced. The type of Asiago that I use is Asiago Dolce that is a mildly maturing spicy Asiago.

INGREDIENTS (for 6 people):
3 Fennels
150 g of Ham
40 g of Asiago (italian cheese)
1 / 2 Onion chopped finely
4 Tablespoons of Extra virgin olive oil
20 g of Butter
Salt
Blak pepper


PREPARATION TIME: 15 minutes

COOKING TIME: 30 – 40 minutes

WINE: Alto Adige Chardonnay DOC (White Wine)

PREPARATION
Preheat the extra virgin olive oil and the butter in a pan, add the chopped onion and let it cook for about 10 minutes in order to give it the pulp concistency. Pay attention to not brown it and so cook it on a low flame.

In the meantime clean ad cut in small squared pieces the fennels


and also the ham. When the onion is ready add the ham

and let it cook for 5 minutes, then add the fennels and mix all togheter.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper and continue to cook fo other 15 minutes.

Grate the Asiago cheese.


Add then 3 tablespoons of water in order to obtain a sort of sauce. 5 minutes before the end of cooikng add the Asiago cheese and let it melt.

Serve hot.
This is the result:


BUON APPETITO!

Fennels Au Gratin

Fennels are vegetable typical of the winter period in Italy. You can cook them in various way, but the recipe that I prefer is the fennels au gratin with béchamel and Parmesan. This dish results light and appetizing.








INGREDIENTS (for 4 people):
3 Fennels
40 g of Parmesan
2 – 3 Tablespoons of breadcrumbs
1 / 2 L of Milk
40 g of Butter
2 Tablespoons of flour
Nutmeg

PREPARATION TIME: 15 minutes

COOKIN TIME: 40 minutes

WINE: Alto Adige Chardonnay Doc

PREPARATION
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Let salted water boil. Wash and clean the fennels, remove the upper fronds

and divide the leaves of them. When water boils place in it the leaves of fennels and let them cook for about 10 minutes.

Drain the fennels and let them cool. In the meantime prepare the béchamel in this way: melt the butter in a pan, stirring sprinkle the flour in it in order to obtain a cream without lumps.


Then continuing to stir, add slowly the milk and some nutmeg and let it cook for about 10 minutes until the béchamel becomes firm.


Now place on the bottom of a baking pan some béchamel, some breadcrumbs, some Parmesan and the fennel.

Over the fennel make another layer as before until the pan becomes full.


Bake for about 15 minutes until the surface become golden.


Serve the fennels au gratin hot as a side dish with meat, salumi or Italian cheese.
This is the result:

BUON APPETITO!