Dominique Rizzo | Bespoke Food Tours
Finocchio Fritto – Fennel Fritters
Easy
Prep 10min Cook 10min
They are delicious hot or cold and make a fantastic antipasto addition, great vegetarian option or an accompaniment to a main meal.
One of my favorite recipes is dipping fennel in flour and then into a mixture of eggs, loads of grated parmesan, parsley and lemon zest and frying it in hot oil to make tasty fennel fritters. They are delicious hot or cold and make a fantastic antipasto addition, great vegetarian option or an accompaniment to a main meal. This recipe depends on the size of your fennel so use a medium sized fennel if you can find one or whatever you get then just adjust the quantities to suit. Usually you may need to remove one of the outer pieces or stalks as it is often damaged, cut off the base of the fennel, the core is usually soft so there is no need to remove it, unless it seems woody or quite hard.
Ingredients
- 1 large bulb of fennel, trimmed
- 2 eggs
- 2 tblsp water
- 1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 1/2 cup chopped parsley
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- Salt and pepper
- 1 cup flour
- Salt and pepper
- 2 cups Olive oil for frying
- Lemon wedges for serving
Recipe Steps
Trim the fennel bulb and slice it into 1/2 cm slices or wedges.
Place the fennel into a pot of boiling water with a squeeze of lemon juice a lemon and cook until the fennel changes colour and becomes transparent, about 4 minutes.
You can also steam the fennel to achieve this. You still want the fennel to have a little bit of a bite to it.
Whisk the eggs with the water, parmesan cheese and the parsley and zest and set aside, season the flour with salt and pepper and set aside.
Heat the oil in a heavy based fry pan, pass the fennel through the flour then the egg parmesan mix and into the hot oil.
Fry the fritters on each side until golden, about 30 seconds and drain on paper towel. Eat hot with a squeeze of lemon.