Tomato Sandwiches Are 10x Better With A Dash Of This Spice In Your Pantry

A darling restaurant in my neighborhood does wonderful things with tomatoes during peak season. Wonderful, but often somewhat predictable. A better-than-most BLT here, a lovely panzanella there. Yet an even simpler dish becomes a can't-miss by virtue of one lesser-known ingredient: vibrant, aromatic fennel pollen atop heirloom tomatoes on toast. This novel enhancement is not exactly ubiquitous in home kitchens, and it's typically more expensive than what's in the standard spice rack. But you can approximate some of its anise-like notes — if not the hand-harvested, golden-hued, little specks of dried pollen plucked from the fennel plant's blossoms — with the same everyday fennel seed that you might already have in your own pantry.

The fennel that's more commonly tucked into cabinets is found in seed form. It's more notably "spiced" than the floral pollen variety, which skews sweeter, but it has a very similar profile. Both can accurately be compared to licorice, although both the seeds and pollen are also more nuanced than the divisive candies. The seeds are imbued with a bright, fresh licorice essence that some may read as earthy and a little citrusy, elements that complement tomatoes. The seeds' light crunch also provides a dynamic contrast to the juicy fruit. And all it takes is a pinch of fennel and a few more easy considerations to make your tomato sandwiches fenn-tastic any time of year.

The general guidelines around making any great tomato sandwich still apply to this fennel seed enhancement. Begin with bread that can withstand abundant juice. Squishy white loaves are the Southern classic, while something less porous like a dense sourdough can better stand up to the tomatoes' abundant water content. Avoid anything more assertively flavored or textured, like a seeded rye, which will just compete with the fennel in this case. Before assembly, salting your tomato slices to prevent sogginess will keep things tidier when you take that first bite. A good pinch of black pepper is also compulsory. 

Fennel mingles terrifically well with a tomato sandwich's traditional mayonnaise, too. Although it's absent from some other popular mayonnaise brands, the bit of lemon present in Hellmann's can add a nearly imperceptible pep without requiring you to spritz yet more liquid onto the whole thing. 

Now, you could just build your sandwich, shower it with fennel, and still see a benefit. But you can make an even bigger impact by seasoning each component individually. Applying a nice coat of fennel to both halves of your mayo-slathered bread as well as the tomatoes packs in about as much as you can. My beloved local spot serves its fennel pollen tomato toast open-faced, and this variation is great that way, too. And if you love it so much that you wish to wade into fennel pollen next, the specialty merchant Regalis carries a great one.