- 1 lbs fennel sausage or sweet Italian sausage
- 2 garlic cloves peeled and minced
- 1 1/2 lbs of fennel bulbs with stalk and root end trimmed. Cut lengthwise into 1/2’’ slices
- 2 large honey crisp apples or any of your choice
- 1 cup walnuts
- 1 teaspoon of fresh thyme
- 1 preserved lemon chopped and de-seeded
- 2 oz of hatch green chili or you can substitute it for poblanos peppers
- 1 cup of taleggio cheese grated
- 1 cup of breadcrumbs (or gluten-free) of your choice
- 1 tablespoon of fennel seeds
- 1 juice of navel orange and zest
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 375.
Heat skillet over medium heat, add 2 teaspoons of olive oil. Add the fennel sausage but be sure to remove any castings around the sausage. Cook the sausage until there is no more pink, breaking it up to bite size pieces and scoop it out of the pan and set aside. Meanwhile, take your garlic and hatch green chile, mince it up and add the remaining 2 teaspoons of olive oil to your medium high skillet cook for about 1-2 min. Just before it starts to brown add your preserved lemons and cut them lengthwise and de-seed and cut them into 1/4’’ slices and add them to the skillet with the garlic and hatch green chile and cook for about 2-4 minutes.
Reduce heat to medium low add the fennel and juice of 1 navel orange and cover and cook for about 5 minutes or until the juice has evaporated and the fennel is tender but not soft. While the fennel cooks prep and slice the apples. Make sure all liquids are evaporated before adding the fennel sausage back into the pan. Add the remaining ingredients, sliced apples, walnuts and thyme and toss all together.
For the “topping” add a generous amount of Taleggio cheese walnuts, 1 tablespoon of fennel seeds and 1 zest of an orange. Toss in the oven and cook for 30-35 minutes until top is golden brown.