Fennel seed is the dried, ridged seed — botanically the fruit — of Foeniculum vulgare, a tall feathery member of the carrot family whose every part smells of liquorice. Warm, sweet and faintly grassy, it carries the same anise-liquorice signature as star anise and aniseed because all three are rich in the molecule anethole. It is the crunchy aromatic in Italian sausage, porchetta and tomato sauces, a backbone of Indian and Chinese spice blends, and the candy-coated seed chewed as a breath-freshening digestive (mukhwas) after a meal. It comes from the very same plant as the bulb vegetable, but is a distinct ingredient with a sweeter, more concentrated aroma.