This is an almost universal technique for vegetables, an honest, simple gratin with a topping of just a couple of ingredients. Since one of them is rich, flavorful blue cheese, butter isn’t even included. My vegetable of choice here is fennel—an underappreciated and almost always available bulb—but you could put this topping on almost any vegetable. For the cheese, you can use Gorgonzola, the soft Italian cheese; bleu d’Auvergne, a mild cheese from France; Maytag blue, the premier domestic variety; Stilton, the classic English blue; or Roquefort, which is made from sheep’s milk. All are good, but my preferences are for the stronger cheeses, such as Roquefort and Maytag.

　　

Ingredients

makes 4 servings

　　1 fennel bulb (about 1 pound)

　　1/2 cup coarse bread crumbs

　　1/4 cup crumbled blue cheese

　　Freshly ground black pepper

　　

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Bring a pot of water to a boil.

　　

Step 2

Trim the fennel, then cut it into about 1/4-inch-thick slices and cook in the boiling water until just tender, less than 5 minutes. Drain and layer in the shallow baking dish. (You can also drain the vegetables, then stop their cooking by plunging them into ice water, then drain again. In this manner you can finish the cooking up to a day or two later; increase the baking time to 20 minutes.)

　　

Step 3

Top the fennel with the bread crumbs, then with the cheese; season all with pepper to taste (hold off on salt, because the cheese is salty). Put in the oven until the cheese melts, about 10 minutes.

　　

Step 4

Run the baking dish under the broiler until the top browns, checking every 30 seconds. Serve hot or at room temperature.

　　From Mark Bittman's Quick and Easy Recipes From the New York Times by Mark Bittman Copyright (c) 2007 by Mark Bittman Published by Broadway Books.Mark Bittman is the author of the blockbuster Best Recipes in the World (Broadway, 2005) and the classic bestseller How to Cook Everything, which has sold more than one million copies. He is also the coauthor, with Jean-Georges Vongerichten, of Simple to Spectacular and Jean-Georges: Cooking at Home with a Four-Star Chef. Mr. Bittman is a prolific writer, makes frequent appearances on radio and television, and is the host of The Best Recipes in the World, a 13-part series on public television. He lives in New York and Connecticut.