Vegetable Fennel, Features And Useful Properties, Cultivation And Recipes

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Discover the interesting and healthy plant fennel

In the grocery store, you can often find cute, bleached dense "heads" of fennel. However, I am sure that few people know what kind of vegetable it is, how it is useful and how to cook it. Let's get acquainted with this rare plant.

Features of culture

Vegetable fennel, or Italian, sweet (Foeniculum vulgare) of the Umbrella family comes from the Mediterranean and Central Asia. As a vegetable plant, it is common in Western Europe, especially in Italy. Grown in the USA, Canada. From Russia, fennel is less known and widespread, but in the wild, ordinary fennel grows along the entire coast of the Black Sea, in the Caucasus and Crimea.

This plant is tall, perennial, in the middle lane it is cultivated as an annual or biennial. "Kochanchiki" in our climate are formed only in the second year of life. But for the sake of fragrant aromatic greens, fennel is grown in an annual culture, even in a room - in pots and boxes. In appearance, fennel resembles dill, but its leaves are larger, juicy, pinnately dissected, with the aroma of anise, they taste slightly sweet. The lower leaves are petiolar, the upper ones are sessile with an enlarged sheath. The root is fusiform, thickened. Flowers are small, yellow, collected in an apical umbel. Fennel is highly pollinated by insects. The fruit is a two-seed, contains a significant amount of healing essential oil. The oil is used in medicine as an antispasmodic agent, as well as in perfumery.

Fennel is picky about soil fertility, relatively cold-resistant, but freezes out in severe winters in the open field. Under a high layer of leaves, peat can overwinter in a garden bed or greenhouse. The soil for sowing and planting is filled with humus, ash, full long-acting fertilizer. In the conditions of a long day and with a lack of moisture in the soil, fennel in the first year of cultivation forms flowering shoots, bypassing the "head of cabbage" phase at the base of the stem.

Fennel agrotechnology

We grow fennel in the open field, mainly as a spice and flavor culture. To obtain greens, seeds are sown for seedlings in April, for the formation of "heads of cabbage" in the second year or later. Before sowing in well-warmed soil (in the North-West - at the end of June), the seeds are soaked in water for two days, changing the water many times. All seeds containing essential oil germinate for a long time, and to accelerate their growth it is recommended to soak them (like dill, carrots, parsley, celery, coriander and other umbellates). Then the seeds are dried until flowable, sown into the beards to a depth of 1 cm, watered and closed the grooves with one movement of a flat cutter, a hoe.

After the emergence of seedlings, the seedlings are thinned at a distance of 15-20 cm between the plants, diving extra specimens into the adjacent furrows, and watered. Fortified seedlings are slightly spud with damp earth. Further care consists in timely loosening and weeding, watering with a lack of moisture in the soil. To obtain the desired "heads of cabbage" with late sowing of Italian fennel, its roots are dug up in the fall, transferred to the basement and dropped into boxes with wet sand. In the spring, the roots are again planted in a fertile garden bed, where it quickly grows with many shoots, they are spud with moist soil several times. By the end of the season, it forms a long-awaited "head of cabbage" - it is considered mature when it reaches a diameter of 8-10 cm.

Winter forcing fennel

Due to the presence of a storing thick root, fennel is suitable for winter forcing. In autumn, its roots, slightly shortening them, are planted closely in a box or a wide pot 20 cm deep, covered with a nutrient mixture, compacted, watered, but without moisture getting on the roots from above. Until frost, fennel is kept on the balcony, in the garage - in a cold place, then transferred to the house on a light windowsill. To obtain full-fledged greenery, it is advisable to supplement the distillation with a fluorescent lamp. Throughout the winter, fennel will produce fragrant vitamin greens. The leaves are cut to the base, after cutting, the plants are fed with a weak solution of nitrogen fertilizers, or with meat water.

The beneficial properties of fennel

Vegetable fennel is a valuable dietary product. Its leaves are rich in ascorbic acid (vitamin C) - 50-90 mg per 100 g of wet weight; carotene (provitamin A) - 6-10 mg per 100 g; routine. Fennel greens also contain quercetin, fenicularin (a flavone derivative), and a small amount of essential oil. Fennel fruits contain 4-6.5% essential oil, which is obtained by distillation. The essential oil has a complex biologically active composition: about 60% anethole, up to 12% fenchone, anisic aldehyde, anisic acid and other components. Fatty oil of fruits consists of 60% petroselinic, 22% oleic, 14% linoleic, 4% palmitic fatty acids.

Since the time of Hippocrates, the fruits of fennel and its preparations have been used as a medicine for violation of the motor function of the intestine, as a diuretic, expectorant, choleretic agent. The Greeks and Romans considered it useful for enhancing vision. In East Prussia, in the north of Germany, in the old days, fennel served as a protection against witchcraft. Modern medicine uses the fruits of fennel in preparations for the treatment of diseases of the upper respiratory tract, dry bronchitis. Fennel stimulates milk production in lactating women (collecting 1 tsp of fennel fruits, dill, anise, oregano herb; 1 tsp of collection is brewed with 1 glass of boiling water, infused for 30 minutes under a lid, drink 1 glass 2-3 times in a day).

The use of fennel in cooking

As a spicy seasoning, greens and fennel fruits are added to vegetable, fish dishes, salads, sauces, marinades, confectionery (replaces anise, star anise). In Italy, fennel is added to cheese, in Thuringia - to bread.

Fennel tea (2 tablespoons of crushed seeds per 1 cup of boiling water, insisted under the lid until it cools down) is considered a sedative, it is drunk in case of indigestion, when coughing, it is recommended to give it in diluted form even to infants.

Salad

"Kochanchiki", young shoots and roots of vegetable fennel are used fresh in salads with cucumber, tomato, spicy herbs, celery stalks, lettuce, seasoned with vegetable oil and lemon juice, sprinkled with sesame seeds, flax. It is preferable to use it fresh, without heat treatment to preserve vitamins and biologically active substances.

More salad

"Kochanchik" of fennel is cut into thin rings, the leek (the white part of the stem) is also thinly cut, seasoned with salt, sugar, lemon juice, olive oil, stirred and allowed to brew for 10-15 minutes. Sprinkle with finely chopped herbs and serve as an independent dish or a side dish for meat or fish.

Boiled fennel

"Kochanchiki" are cut, quickly boiled, breaded in breadcrumbs and fried in oil, served with sour cream. You can cut fennel "heads" into cubes, stew in a little water with sour cream, thicken the sauce with white breadcrumbs, serve with finely chopped herbs.

Baked fennel

4 heads of cabbage, 2 tbsp. butter, 2 eggs, 0.5 cups of milk, 3 tbsp. oatmeal, 1 tbsp. grated cheese, salt to taste. Heads of cabbage are cut lengthwise, stewed in butter in a saucepan for 15-20 minutes, salted. Pour a beaten mixture of eggs, milk, rolled oats, salt, sprinkle with grated cheese, bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes at a temperature of 200 degrees.