Spaghetti with Fennel

This is a nice twist on tomato based spaghetti.  I watch David Rocco on TV whenever I can.  He is not only gorgeous to look at but he makes cooking look easy.  He doesn't weigh or measure his ingredients, just tosses some of this and a pinch of that into the pan.  I like cooking like that.  So I watched as he made Spaghetti with Wild Fennel to serve to his friends in Italy.  I tried it and love it. 

                            

An easy dish to prepare and very tasty.  As you can see, I used linguine (gluten-free of course) as I didn't have spaghetti pasta that evening and I also added cubed left over chicken which I added to the crouton pan to heat up.

I don't have wild fennel, but did have fennel seeds in the cupboard, so I ground up some of them.

I cubed my bread to a size I like.  You can cut larger cubes or smaller cubes, your preference.  I also chopped up some garlic (2 cloves).

I fried the cubed bread in olive oil along with the garlic.

My grated cheese was ready to go.

Voila!  Dinner is served.

Ingredients:

All of these ingredients are approximate.  

1 lb. spaghetti

3 TBSP Extra-virgin Olive Oil or a bit more 

3 Cloves Garlic, chopped (I used 2, but also used 1/2 pkg of linguini)

1/2 Tsp Dried Chili Pepper Flakes

2 Tsp Fennel Seeds (I must have used a TBSP ... I love Fennel)

4 Oz. day old Bread, cut into cubes (the cube size is your choice)

Pinch of Salt

1 Small bunch of Wild Fennel

1/2 Cup freshly grated Pecorino (or other dry cheese, I used Parmesan)

Cook spaghetti pasta in rapidly boiling salted water to el dente.

In a pan, heat good quality extra virgin olive oil.  Add a couple of cloves chopped garlic, some red chilli flakes, fennel seeds and simmer slowly to disperse the flavours.  

Chop day old bread into cubes (big or small, the choice is yours) and fry them in the oil till golden.  Add a bit of course salt.  

Add the el dente spaghetti to the pan and finish cooking it in the olive oil sauce in the fry pan.  Sprinkle with the extra wild fennel (if using), plate, then drizzle with a bit more olive oil and sprinkle on the grated cheese and enjoy.