Here it comes one of my favorite recipe for this season’s dinners 🙂

I like the fennel bulb, also raw in salads (for example it matches very well with orange), but probably I like it better in soups, it gives a very particular taste, half way between sweet and not.

And paired together with a good cereal like the farro it makes a very complete meal 🙂

To make this recipe you could use a vegetable stock, but a good and fresh fennel bulb has already a lot of taste, so also just hot water can be enough in my opinion and this recipe is very tasty also just like that, really.

Let’s see how to make it.

INGREDIENTS (4 people):

• 1 whole fennel bulb
• 1 big potato
• 1 onion (white or golden, not too big)
• 120/140 g of pearled farro (but also pearled barley is a good choice)
• extra virgin olive oil (3-4 table spoons, about)
• salt
• freshly ground black pepper
• croutons
• freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano (optional)

1. First of all soak the pearled farro in a bowl with cold water, with a little bit of salt, for about 1 hour.
2. Then cut the onion and the fennel into thin slices (from the fennel I remove the external layer), and chop the potato into small cubes (then leave the potato cubes in cold water, otherwise it will get darker).
3. Take a high pot and start boiling water, a couple of liters, and add salt in it.
4. Then take a large pan and heat the extra virgin olive oil, and once it’s hot enough add the onion and cook for 5 minutes until softer.
5. Then add the fennel and cook for other 5 minutes, and then add the potato and cover all the vegetables with the salted boiling water: has to be enough to cover all the ingredients. Now let it cook at low heat for about 30 minutes, the time for the potato to be cooked.
6. About 10 minutes after you added water to the vegetables put the drained pearled farro in the hot water to boil: it will be ready in about 20 minutes.
7. Meanwhile prepare your croutons in the oven.
8. Once you see that the potato are ready (control also if the vegetables are salty enough, and season with a little bit of black pepper), take an immersion blender and reduce the vegetables into a smooth cream. At this point you can also pass the cream through a sieve/strainer to make it even more smooth, but it my case it was already smooth enough.
9. Drain the farro and drop it in the cream, and mix everything together.
10. Serve it in your dish, add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and the croutons, and enjoy 🙂

PS: if you would like you could add a little bit of grated Parmigiano Reggiano, but in my opinion this soup it’s already very good also without 🙂

And if some soup remains don’t worry: it’s good also the day after 😉