A Recipe for Wild Fennel Pesto (with Pasta) + a Tuscany Life Update
Foraged wild fennel pesto with parmesan, almonds, chilli and zingy lemon - served with a update on life in Tuscany!
Wild fennel is growing—well… wild right now in Tuscany. It’s irresistible not to pull the car over and pick it.
This wild fennel pesto definitely packs a punch and is a really fun twist on traditional basil pesto. It’s great with pasta or vegetarian lasagne, on a sandwich with slow-cooked capsicum, mozzarella, and rocket (or with prosciutto), or dressing fresh boiled potatoes as a side dish to fish. It’s super versatile and the perfect condiment to have in the fridge to easily, quickly, and tastily jazz up any dish!
To be honest, I can find pesto to be a little too rich at times, so I like to add extra lemon and chilli to give it a touch of spice, and less parmigiano. For this recipe, I would’ve loved to have put some mint in, but I didn’t have any—so if you have some, I recommend it. You can also experiment with what nuts or seeds you use. I used almonds, but you could use pepitas, sunflower seeds, or pine nuts for something more traditional. Play and make it to your taste.
This recipe was inspired by a vegetarian lasagne I ate at Agriturismo Il Rigo—my new job as a floral assistant! This summer, I’ll be busy playing with flowers, setting beautiful tables, and petting Il Rigo’s eight gorgeous, quirky, and full-of-personality cats. Luisa, the incredibly creative owner, grows every single flower that goes in each arrangement for the entire 3-month wedding season. I’ve had so much fun working beside her and learning more about creating flower arrangements—something I’ve wanted to learn for a long time.
Working there feels like something out of a Tuscan dream. It’s a beautiful, traditional Tuscan villa, down a dirt road lined with pine trees, perched high on a hill overlooking San Quirico and the iconic Tuscan rolling hills. Grapevines grow over an arch above the front door and onto the house. Cats are sprawled everywhere. There’s a courtyard in the middle of the villa where they host pizza nights beneath fairy lights that criss cross the courtyard.
It truly feels like a pinch-me-is-this-really-happening-to-me moment each day that I arrive at work. I often sit in my car and laugh at it all. It truly feels like I’m adding to this Eat Pray Love chapter of my life.
The staff are mostly Italian, with one gorgeous Irish woman, so I’m having a lot of fun mixing Italian and English—especially being occasionally cheeky with the Roman chef! Best of all, I’ve won the heart of Terry— my new work nonna. Being Italian, they always feed you when you’re working over lunch or dinner—something I absolutely adore. It’s not the same back home in Australia. You bring your own lunch or, if you want to eat where you work, you can, but you need to pay (a discounted price) for it.
Terry, my new work nonna, found out that during my first week, I didn’t eat dinner. It’s very relaxed in Italy. You don’t have set breaks or eating times, so, being Australian, I kept working until someone told me I could take a break. No one did, so I didn’t eat. Blasphemy in Italy! Terry was very upset when she found out, so now she makes sure every single shift that I eat—not just one plate of pasta but two, often followed by dessert. She will literally come searching for me, and not only make me stop work but sit down to eat, adding more to my plate than what I’d initially served myself.
You could say it’s been one of my favourite places to work!
That’s it for my little Tuscany life update served with a side of wild fennel pesto. Before the season ends, go foraging for some wild fennel, and be someone’s Italian nonna and serve them up a big bowl—or two—of this wild fennel pesto pasta.
Enjoy, you hungry thing x
Ingredients:
Pesto:
100g wild fennel (roughly two large bunches)
100g almonds (without skin)
1/2 fresh chilli
1/2 clove of garlic
10g parmigiano
150ml olive oil
Juice of 1 lemon + rind (add more or less depending on your taste)
Salt
Optional: Add mint to make the taste even fresher.
Pasta:
100g spaghetti per person
Salt
To Create:
Boil fennel in salted water for 5 minutes
After 5 minutes, strain the fennel and transfer immediately to a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process and keep the beautiful green colour of the fennel.
Strain the fennel from the cold water and gently pat dry. Remove the fennel leaves from the stalks and roughly chop. This prevents the fennel from getting too tangled in the blender blades.
Add in the grated parmigiano, garlic and chilli, plus half measurements of all the other ingredients to ensure smooth blending.
Salt pesto to taste.
Put your pesto in a sterilised jar and top with extra olive oil and place in the fridge. The extra olive oil on top prevents it from mixing with the air and going bad. Adding extra on top each time you’ve eaten some.
Generously salt a pot of water for cooking the pasta. Cook spaghetti until al dente.
Place a few spoon fulls of pesto in a large bowl along with freshly cooked spaghetti and a small ladle of pasta water and toss to combine. Tossing the pasta with pasta water like gives the pasta an incredibly silky, creamy texture.
Garnish with fresh basil leaves, or mint if you have some, and extra parmigiano.
Buon apetito!
