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Chicory Salad
Wash the chicory, trim the ends, leaving each piece about three inches long. Put in a bowl 1/2 teaspoonful of salt, 1 teaspoonful of grated onion, and 1 saltspoonful of pepper; mix, and add 4 tablespoonfuls of olive-oil; rub until the salt is dissolved; add 1 tablespoonful of tarragon vinegar; mix well and pour over the chicory, and serve at once.
A plain oil-and-vinegar dressing built in the bowl rather than shaken in a jar. The only real decisions are which chicory is meant and how long the leaves sit in the dressing.
- Which chicoryPieces trimmed to three inches suggest the pale forced heads (witloof, sold in the US as Belgian or French endive) rather than the frizzy green sort, though the recipe does not say. Note that the names are used inconsistently on either side of the Atlantic. Either works; if you use curly endive, tear it rather than cutting to length.
- SaltspoonfulA saltspoon is a quarter teaspoon. So: 1/2 tsp salt, 1/4 tsp pepper, 1 tsp grated onion.
- Dressing ratioFour parts oil to one part vinegar is sharper than it sounds because chicory is bitter and takes salt and acid well. Taste before dressing the whole head and add a few more drops of vinegar if the leaves are very pale and mild.
- Rub until the salt is dissolvedThe recipe has you work the salt, onion and pepper into the oil before the vinegar goes in, so no grains are left undissolved when the salad is dressed.
- Tarragon vinegarStill sold, and worth seeking out here; the anise note is the whole character of the dish. White wine vinegar with a bruised tarragon sprig steeped in it for an hour is a fair stand-in.
- Grated onionGrating rather than chopping is deliberate — it releases juice into the oil and leaves no raw pieces to bite into. Use the fine side of a box grater and include the liquid on the board.
- Serve at onceMeant literally. Dressed chicory begins to wilt and weep within a few minutes, and the crispness is the point.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity of chicory; the roughly five tablespoons of dressing would suit two or three heads, enough for about four as a side salad.