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My kabobs keep clicking. This is Day 5 in my weeklong series dedicated to everything skewered and grilled. Today I have Grilled Salmon Skewers with Wild Fennel Pollen.

But this is Day 5 and I have pretty much covered all the details you may ever need to know about the humble kabob. Everything from cooking simple one-ingredient skewers all the way to how to choose and prep ingredients when there are several choices stuck on the stick.

So I have deicided to use the power of the kabob to highlight an ingredient that you may not be familiar with, or perhaps you just don’t use enough. Wild Fennel Pollen.

Now the name is pretty self-evident ‘cuz Wild Fennel Pollen is exactly what it says it is. The pollen from wild fennel! It is a typical Tuscan ingredient, where it is called finnocio. Hand collected from the flowers of wild fennel growing on the coastal and inland fields and open spaces in warm weather climates like Tuscany and California.

As a cook, Fennel Pollen is a new ingredient for me. I was given a sample by Justin at Marx Foods. I've never tasted anything else quite like it. It is intensely flavorful, reminiscent of anise but not quite the same. It is both sweet and pungent, though it has floral notes that smell deeply of everything you love about fennel and then some. It's exhilarating– intoxicating even.

Having trouble picturing it? It looks like fluffy, yellow colored sand. It is surprisingly easy to use too– mix it with a pinch of sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper and sprinkle it on to chicken, fish, potatoes or almost anything before cooking. It's the quintessential Tuscan ingredient for anything made with pork, especially salumi. I have even seen it is used to make fennel pollen pesto. I need to research that recipe because I’d like to try it.

My grilled salmon kabobs are brined in an anise flavored sweet and salty mixture. I am threading thin slices of fennel bulb with the fish too. You could blanch the fennel first if you prefer a milder flavor. But I like the crunch and the sweet licorice flavor that comes from adding them to the skewers raw.

Grilled Salmon Skewers with Wild Fennel Pollen serves 4 CLICK here for a printable recipe