Roasted Fennel, Zucchini, and Clementines with Tomatoes and Feta

Not Your Typical Roasted Veggie Meal. At All.

Here is a pretty simple pan of roasted vegetables and clementines – 2 bulbs of fresh fennel, 1 zucchini, 1 red onion, and 3 clementines are the basic ingredients. But this ended up being so much more than that. Not that a simple tray of roasted vegetables isn’t delicious. On the contrary, I often keep my roasted vegetables simple because many times they really don’t need much more than good olive oil, salt, and pepper. 

But I wanted this dish to be the star of the show, so I added some things that raised this up to a high level of delicious. Whole unpeeled garlic cloves and a sliced Fresno chili, along with fresh thyme sprigs are first mixed with the veggies, along with olive oil, salt, and pepper.

After roasting at a high heat of 475° for 35 minutes, I removed the garlic. It was now soft and I didn’t want it to burn as I finished cooking the dish. At this point, I added a carton of assorted cherry tomatoes and crumbled feta cheese, a little more olive oil,  and popped it back under the broiler until the tomatoes had started to burst open and the feta began to brown.

Now things got interesting. I squeezed the garlic cloves out of their peels and added them back to the pan. I then sprinkled plenty of capers on top. I greatly prefer salt packed capers * vs. brine packed. Even though it takes plenty of rinsing to get rid of the salt, I like the firmness and flavor of salt packed capers * best. Plenty of Aleppo pepper * then went on top. 

I had received a gift of caper leaves that are preserved in oil * and added those, too. These are such a unique and interesting ingredient. The leaves are thin, but almost crunchy in texture. And they have the flavor of capers without all the saltiness. I just knew they’d be great in this, but they’re not absolutely necessary. Don’t worry if you don’t have them. There’s plenty going on here without them.

Then I finished everything off by sprinkling on a healthy amount of dukkah/duqqa. If you’ve never had it, let me explain. It’s an Egyptian and Middle Eastern condiment that consists of nuts, seeds, herbs, spices, and salt. I’ve seen more variations in the exact types of ingredients than I can count. I make it myself and I can’t even tell you what mine actually has in it because when I get low, I just add more things and pop it back in the fridge until I use it again. Most commonly, it contains chopped hazelnuts, sesame seeds, ground cumin, coriander, and fennel seeds. 

But I’ve added almonds or peanuts, turmeric, dried fenugreek leaves, nigella seeds, and an assortment of other things to my dukkah. I even have a friend who adds fried anchovy bread crumbs to his. The point is that you want a crunchy and flavor packed condiment. Will it be authentic to its origin? No, it won’t, but I enjoy it immensely. I sprinkle it on breads, pastas, vegetables, etc. In this case, it added welcome crunch and flavor to the vegetables and clementines. 

Speaking of clementines, it’s no secret how much I love citrus fruits. And they added such a beautiful element to this roasted vegetable centric meal. I particularly love them when they’ve gotten some char on them from roasting at a high temperature. Clementines are so thin skinned that the skin and all can be eaten when they’re roasted. Each bite of this dish was different and contained something interesting and  delicious. My kind of meal.