Spaghetti with wild fennel
(alternatively: green tufts of fennel)

by

Angela Paola Alessandrini

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Presentation 

The dish that I propose is very simple but really very tasty, easy to make and composed of very few basic ingredients. It is the classic dish of the poor Italian and Mediterranean cuisine, when, mixing what you had at home, with what nature offered, small masterpieces of flavor were made. The basic ingredient is wild fennel, but for those who do not have the possibility to find it, it can be replaced with the green tufts of fennel, easily available. In this case we would have made a typical dish of the circular kitchen in which every part of the ingredients is used. If you have a good amount of tufts, you can chop them, freeze them and use them later or in other preparations.

Ingredients

Extra virgin olive oil, wild fennel or tufts of fennel, garlic pine nuts. In addition you can use: chilli pepper and some anchovy fillets in oil.
It is not necessary to be too precise with the quantities of ingredients, we can be guided by our sense of smell and taste.
Spaghetti is the type of pasta that goes best with our seasoning.

Execution

Prepare a chopped mixture of ingredients: fennel, pine nuts, garlic. Boil the water for the pasta and salt. Use a chopping board and a knife and chop the fennel, garlic and pine nuts. Finely chop everything. I do not recommend using electric cutters or choppers that would lose consistency and fragrance.
In a pan large enough to hold all the pasta, heat enough oil and, if you wish, the anchovies and chilli pepper. Then add your chopped mixture, put out the fire and cover the pan. Once the pasta is cooked, pour it into the pan and add some cooking water.  Stir the spaghetti into the sauce, or: mix spaghetti, pasta water and sauce well, until the water has released all the starch and the sauce has formed a cream). 
Use and, if you want, decorate with the most beautiful tufts that you have kept aside.

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