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Dressed Endive
There are many varieties of endive: the green curled sort is principally used for salads. Those who like the bitterness of this vegetable will find it, when cooked according to the recipes here given, a wholesome and agreeable change during the summer. The green leaves may be boiled like those of any other vegetable, only changing the water twice to take off the bitterness. After boiling till tender, throw the endive into cold water for ten minutes; then squeeze out the water, and when dry chop and stew with butter, gravy, or, like spinach, beat it smooth, and serve round cutlets, or alone, with bread sippets as a garnish. Time to boil, half an hour.
A Victorian method for treating chicory greens as a hot vegetable rather than a salad. The instructions are sound in outline, but the timing belongs to an era that boiled greens into submission.
- Which endive"Green curled" endive is what is now sold as curly endive or frisée — a loose, frilly head of chicory, not the pale torpedo-shaped Belgian endive (witloof). Escarole, its broad-leaved cousin, behaves the same way and is often easier to find.
- Half an hour is far too longFrisée and escarole are tender in 8 to 12 minutes in well-salted water. Thirty minutes leaves a grey, slippery mass; if the purpose is a purée it can go a little longer, but not double.
- Changing the waterThe two water changes are for bitterness, and they do work — chicory's bitter compounds are water-soluble. Modern taste usually wants some of that bitterness kept, so one change, or none at all, is worth trying first.
- The cold-water stepTen minutes in cold water is a shock to set the colour and stop the cooking. Iced water does it in two or three minutes; then squeeze hard, because wet greens will not take butter or reduce properly.
- "Gravy"In books of this period gravy means meat stock or the pan juices of a roast, not thickened brown sauce. Use a few spoonfuls of good chicken or veal stock, or simply more butter.
- "Beat it smooth"This is the spinach treatment — chop, then work to a rough purée. A food processor does it in seconds, but pulse rather than run it, or the result turns to green water.
- Bread sippetsSippets are small pieces of bread, often triangles or fingers, toasted or fried until crisp and arranged round the edge of the dish. Cut them small; they are a garnish.
- YieldThe recipe specifies no quantity. Endive collapses dramatically, so a couple of large heads will make only a small dish once boiled, squeezed and stewed.