The arrival of my November 10^th installment of NY Magazine elicited squeals of delight from yours truly – a whole spread of holiday foods featuring local ingredients (and the farmers who grow them!) written by a few of my favorite chefs. Given that I’ve been in a soup-y mood lately and that I love love love fennel, deciding to dive in with Dan Barber’s recipe for a fennel soup was a no-brainer (stay tuned for other gems, including Ed Brown’s Roasted Oysters with Leeks & Bacon – drool).

This soup is simple once you move beyond the stock, which is just slightly more complex than an average vegetable stock with it’s fennel, garlic, coriander seeds, and thyme. I recommend that you prepare it in advance, otherwise you are looking at 4 hours in the kitchen. 

Alas, I did not photograph the stock-making process, but the instructions are straightforward – apologies for being a bad blogger. 

There are few things more satisfying that chopping into a big bulb of fennel – it’s dense and crisp and your kitchen is instantly filled with fresh, anise aroma. Well, maybe there is one thing more satisfying – peeling an apple clean with just a single insertion of the blade. When chopping the fennel, be sure to use only the white parts for the soup and hold the greens for later.

The rest is simple – sweat out the onions and shallots in a tiny bit of olive oil, add the apples and fennel, then the stock, season, and simmer for half an hour. Come back in 30 minutes and you will have a saucepan of mush – fennel, apples, and the rest all cooked down and ready to become creamy soup.

Contrary to Dan Barber’s instructions, I pureed the mush in the food processor as I tend to avoid cleaning my blender at all costs. I let the food processor do its job for about three minutes and got the desired effect – a creamy, dense fennel soup that tastes so rich that you’ll never miss the stick of butter that you’ll swear is enveloped in that fennel-apple goodness. This soup is a vegan’s dream.

Dairyless Local-Fennel Soup
From New York Magazine, November 10, 2008
THE RECIPE:
For the Vegetable Stock:

• 
1 tablespoon grapeseed oil 

• 1 1/4 cups medium-diced onion 

• 1/4 cup thinly sliced shallots 

• 1/4 cup medium-diced leeks
•  
1/2 cup medium-diced carrots 
• 
3 1/4 cups medium-diced fennel 
• 
Salt

• 1/8 teaspoon coriander seeds 

• 1/8 teaspoon black peppercorns 

• 6 sprigs parsley 

• 3 sprigs thyme 

• 1/2 head garlic

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, add the vegetables and a pinch of salt, and sweat over low heat. Add the coriander seeds, peppercorns, parsley, thyme, garlic, and 6 cups water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 50 minutes. Strain and chill.

For the Fennel Soup:

• 
3 tablespoons olive oil 
• 
1 onion, chopped 
• 
3 small shallots, minced 
• 
3 1/2 cups diced fennel, white part only, reserving green fronds for garnish 

• 1 apple, peeled and diced 
• 
Salt and ground black pepper 

• 1 tablespoon fennel seeds, crushed 
• 
4 cups vegetable stock (recipe above) 

• 1/2 teaspoon chopped thyme

Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large saucepan, add the onion and shallots, and sweat until translucent. Add the fennel and apple, and season with salt and pepper. Cook for a few minutes before adding the fennel seeds and stock, bring to a boil, and simmer for 30 minutes. Add thyme and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Transfer to a blender and purée, adding the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil. Return to saucepan and heat gently. Garnish with fennel fronds.

THE CHEF:
 Dan BarberBlue Hill and Blue Hill at Stone Barns
Instead of the traditional pumpkin or squash soup, Dan Barber prefers the anise-flavored fennel. “It’s so silky and rich, you don’t need to add dairy,” he says. “Which means it’s hearty without being filling, so you can enjoy the rest of the meal.” Barber has experimented with many varieties for flavor, but Ken Migliorelli’s oversize bulbs, he’s says, “are the sweetest.”
THE FARMER:
 Ken Migliorelli(Migliorelli Farm) Tivoli; 845-757-3276 or migliorelli.com Ken Migliorelli comes from a family of Italian farmers—when his grandfather emigrated from Italy in the thirties, he brought broccoli-rabe seeds with him and planted them on his farm in the Bronx. That same strain of seed is now grown on Migliorelli’s farm in Dutchess County, which is one of the largest regional farms specializing in Italian products—broccoli rabe, arugula, and dandelion, among 140 other items. “The fennel’s grown in a sandy loam soil,” says Migliorelli. “That’s what makes it sweet.”