To harvest fennel pollen, gather as many flowers as you can and shake each one onto a sheet of parchment. The pollen will drop from the flowers, and you may get a few of the tiny flower buds as well.
To maximize your harvest, you can rub two flower heads together gently to encourage more pollen to fall.
Its brilliant golden color just swells with summer sunshine. After all, that’s when it thrives.
Store the fennel pollen in a small jar and try to use it while it’s fresh. If your kitchen stays very warm in the summer, it’s best to keep fresh pollen refrigerated if you don’t cook with it right away.
Unlike dried pollen, which is crusty and hard, fresh pollen is delicate and soft. It can go wherever fennel or anise may go to accent a dish: on fish or shellfish, pork or chicken, barbecued ribs or sweet sausages.