I lived in Boston and Cambridge for about 4 years before NYC and the restaurant I miss most is vegetarian fast-casual joint, Clover Food Lab.
Clover Food Lab introduced me to how unexpectedly delicious and nuanced fresh, seasonal vegetables can be, depending on technique and seasonings. Before Clover, I didn't know what sunchokes or celeriac were or tasted like, that tempeh can be good and make an awesome BLT, or that pitas can be fluffy and fresh and delicious and don't just come in a thin extra-large size.
I didn't know what panelle sandwiches were either. Clover's version involved tucking panelle and a salad made with olives, citrus, and fennel into their fluffy homemade pita spread with a thin layer of lemon mayo.
My panelle pita sandwich with fennel slaw is an ode to my love for Clover. Based off of a post on Clover Food Lab's blog from July 2022 and two very old video (video one and video two) they posted year ago, I did my best to get as close as I could to my memory of the sandwich.
My version drops the lemon mayo (less fussy: just squeeze more lemon juice over top the entire finished sandwich) and drops the fresh orange juice from the slaw dressing (could have been my shitty late-winter oranges, but it didn't seem to add much besides another ingredient to my shopping list).
It is *chef's kiss* and I hope you enjoy it. If you too once lived in Boston I hope you remember one of the best fast casual restaurants in the city.
Hungry for more? Try making this cheesy, crispy feta potato rösti with caramelized onions (gluten-free, vegetarian).
What is panelle?
Panelle are Sicilian chickpea flour fritters. Panelle sandwiches, called pane e panelle, are a popular street food in Palermo, and are usually served with a wedge of lemon for squeezing over the pane e panelle.
Typically, panelle is made by mixing chickpea flour with water, salt, pepper, olive oil and cooking over medium heat until a polenta-like dough is formed. Fresh chopped parsley is mixed in, then the mixture is spread thinly into a container and left to cool and set. Once cooled and set, the dough is cut into slices and fried.
When I was in France in July of 2022, I took an incredible (albeit expensive) food tour of Marseille through Culinary Backstreets. I didn't make it to any bouillabaisse restaurants, but I did try a bunch of snacks, cured meats, pastries, and street foods I never even knew existed, including panisse. Panisse is similar to panelle. How similar, I do not know, but I can tell you that the panisse I tried in Marseille was circular, thinly sliced, was dusted very liberally with salt, and contained no parsley.
(A Marseille aside: I'm sorry to report that the Marseille restaurant that served my favorite very affordable prix fixe meal of my almost two week trip through France and Germany, Madame Jeanne is now permanently closed. However, if you're in Southern France and have a day or two to pass through Aix-en Provence, airy, simply decorated cakes at Maison Weibel are truly worth the detour.)
Why this recipe works
Pita are so unfussy. Where the geometry of sandwiches almost always requires two hands, and threaten slipper tomatoes or lettuce falling out onto your pants or the floor, the worse that can happen with pita pockets are sauce leakages. Plus, it's a lot easier to stuff a fluffy, warm pliable pita to damn near bursting than it is to stuff a two slices of bread sandwich.
Dressing the hardly fennel and olive slaw with a lemon-garlic vinaigrette that skews heavy on the acid helps cut the inherent heaviness of the fried panelle, balancing out the sandwich.
Lastly, panelle is super easy to make and requires minimal ingredients and time to prepare. The outside of the panelle after having a dip in the fryer is crispy, but the inside remains creamy and custardy.
Ingredient notes
Lemon
If you don't have a fresh lemon, it's totally okay to use lemon juice, but freshly squeezed juice will give your fennel salad and panelle sandwich the brightest taste.
Kalamata olives
I always have a giant jar of Costco's pitted Parthenon Kalamata Olives in the back of my fridge. They're packed in brine with red wine vinegar and olive oil and work with the lemon juice in the fennel slaw to lighten up the heaviness of deep fried panelle.
Honey
For the most part, I don't like putting sweeteners in my savory food, but through recipe testing both my partner and I agreed that something was missing from the fennel slaw and that something turned out to be a touch of sweetness. You can replace the honey with maple syrup, making the slaw vegan, or even sugar if you prefer.
Chickpea flour
Chickpea flour, also known as garbanzo bean flour, is just ground up whole chickpeas (garbanzo beans). Chickpea flour is naturally gluten-free. It can be used as a binding ingredient, and does a great job as batter for deep frying other foods.
Chickpea flour has a neutral, bland flavor and therefore does well adopting flavors from other seasonings (hence our use of garlic and rosemary for these panelle!).
Bob's Red Mill's chickpea flour was widely available in the neighborhood grocery stores I checked out, but disclaimer: I live in NYC. If you're having trouble finding it in your grocery store, try health food, Indian, South Asian, and specialty grocery stores.
Step-by-step instructions (with photos and GIFs)
Make the slaw: Prepare the dressing, then prepare the fennel. Shave the bulb and stalks, and chop the fronds.
Chop the parsley and olives. Add the dressing to the slaw and mix everything together.
Prepare the panelle: Sauté the garlic and rosemary in olive oil. Then add water and salt. Whisk in chickpea flour.
Cook until the mixture has thickened.
Mix in chopped parsley. Then spread into an even layer on a baking sheet or container and let cool.
Fry the panelle: Preheat a frying pan of oil to about 350°F.
Cut the cooled panelle into rectangles.
Fry in batches until golden brown.
Remove and drain on a paper towel. Season with salt to taste while still warm.
Prepare the sandwiches: Warm the pitas and carefully split them open. Spread mayo inside each pocket, stuff with fried panelle and fennel slaw. Squeeze a bit of fresh lemon juice over everything and enjoy.
Tips for making this recipe
Careful when sautéing the garlic and rosemary for the panelle
Both rosemary and garlic will turn bitter if cooked too long, so throw them into the olive oil and fry them up until just fragrant, then continue on with the rest of the panelle process.
It's okay if the oil is a little over temperature
Adding your panelle rectangles is going to cool the oil down immediately so it's okay if the oil is a little over temperature. I've found that deep-frying panelle is more forgiving than deep-frying other things that require a careful vigilance.
Wait to dress the slaw
Fennel bulb is hardy so it won't wilt in the same way finer greens will if you dress them too early, but if you're going to serve the sandwiches next day or even later and just want to prep ingredients now, wait to dress the slaw until about 30 minutes before you're ready to assemble the sandwiches.
Use a good-quality olive oil
Especially in the slaw or for any dressing or vinaigrette, it's important to use a good-quality, fresh-tasting olive oil because it's not going to be cooked. If the olive oil tastes rancid, bitter, off, or you just don't like the taste of it, no amount of seasoning or acid is going to change how it tastes.
FAQs
How do I keep my panelle crisp after frying it?
You don't. After frying, the panelle will get less and less crispy so it's best eaten immediately after frying, dusted with salt, and stuffed into a pita. Keeping fried panelle rectangles in a warm oven will prolong the crisp, but is kept in the warm oven to keep it warm more than anything while the other panelle rectangles are frying.
Can you make panelle in advance?
You could fry it in advance, and bake it for 10 minutes or so at 350°F on a wire rack to get the outside crisp again, but don't expect it to be as crisp as it was immediately after frying. Panelle is best eaten fresh out of the fryer, so I don't suggest making it too far in advance.
📖 Recipe
Panelle sandwich with fennel slaw (Clover Food Lab-inspired copycat) (Vegetarian)
Ingredients
Fennel, citrus, and olive slaw
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- juice of 1 lemon (about 3 tbsp)
- 1 cloves garlic minced
- 1 teaspoon honey
- ¼ teaspoon Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- ⅛ teaspoon black pepper freshly cracked
- 1 small fennel bulb, including stem and fronds bulb and stems shaved against the grain about ⅙ inch thick, fronds roughly chopped
- ¼ bunch flat-leaf parsley (about 55g) roughly chopped
- ⅓ cup Kalamata olives roughly chopped
Panelle
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 clove garlic minced
- ½ teaspoon fresh rosemary chopped
- ¾ Diamond Crystal kosher salt
- ½ cup chickpea flour
- ¼ cup flat-leaf parsley roughly chopped
- vegetable oil or other neutral-flavor, high smoke-point oil to fry the panelle in
To serve
- mayonnaise
- lemon wedges
Instructions
Fennel, citrus, olive slaw
- Add the olive oil, lemon juice, honey, garlic, salt, and pepper to a jar or small container with a lid add. Shake until well combined.
- Into a large bowl, place the shaved fennel bulb and fennel stem, and roughly chopped fennel fronds, flat-leaf parsley, and Kalamata olives.
- Pour about 1½ tbps of the dressing onto the salad. Mix until well-coated. If you prefer your salad a bit wetter, add more dressing in ½ tablespoon increments until it's to your liking.
- Cover and place into the refrigerator.
Panelle
- In a small saucepan over medium heat, add olive oil. When the oil is shimmering, add the minced garlic and chopped fresh rosemary. Sauté until fragrant and the garlic is just starting to color.
- Add 1 cup of water and ¾ teaspoon of Diamond Krystal kosher salt.
- Little by little to prevent lumps, slowly whisk in the chickpea flour. Once all of the flour has been added, lower the heat to medium-low and continue whisking vigorously, until the mixture is thick (similar to polenta) and starts to pull away from the edges of the saucepan.
- In an even layer, spread the mixture into a pan or container, or onto baking sheet about ½ inch thick. I used a 9x6 inch pan (See Note 1). Let cool for at least 1 hour until firmed up.
- Preheat the oven to about 140℉.
- When you're ready to fry the panelle, heat about ½ inch of vegetable oil to 350℉ in a frying pan. Keep the heat between medium-low and medium.
- Cut the cooled panelle into 2½ x 1½ inch rectangles.
- Fry the panelle rectangles in batches (don't overcrowd the oil) for about 3 minutes on each side, until golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels. Season with salt while warm, then place into the warmed oven while you finish frying the other panelle rectangles.
- Warm the pitas and carefully split open the pockets. Spread a decent amount of mayonnaise inside of each pocket, then stuff each pita with an equal amount of fried panelle and fennel slaw. Serve with lemon wedges to squeeze over top.
Notes
- I used a 9x6 inch pan, which resulted in an even layer of panelle about ½ inch thick. If you don't have a container, pan, or baking sheet this size, you can also free-hand spreading the panelle, but try to spread it out into a rectangular shape.
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