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Chicory
This excellent vegetable can be dressed either in a bechamel sauce, or with butter and lemonjuice. It is gently stewed, first of all, and it requires pepper and salt. The sauces can be varied with tomato, or with some of the good English bottled sauces stirred with the bechamel.
A sketch rather than a recipe: the method is a gentle stew, and everything else is a choice of dressing. The gaps are worth filling in.
- What chicory means hereThis is witloof, the pale forced chicon sold in English-speaking countries as Belgian endive or chicory head. It is not curly endive, radicchio, or the roasted root used as a coffee substitute.
- Quantity and yieldAllow two medium heads per person as a vegetable side. Eight heads and about a cup of bechamel serves four.
- "Gently stewed"Braise the whole heads in a covered pan with a knob of butter, a splash of water or stock, salt and pepper, over low heat for 25-35 minutes until a knife slides into the base with no resistance. Undercooked chicory stays fibrous and aggressively bitter.
- Managing bitternessTrim the base and, if the heads are large, cone out the dense core at the root end, which holds most of the bitterness. A pinch of sugar and the lemon juice mentioned in the recipe both work against it, as does keeping the heads out of the light before cooking.
- Drain before saucingChicory throws off a lot of water. Lift the cooked heads out and let them drain, or press them gently in a cloth, before adding béchamel, or the sauce will slacken to a puddle.
- Béchamel proportionsFor a coating sauce: 2 tbsp butter, 2 tbsp flour, 1 cup milk, cooked out for a few minutes so the flour loses its raw taste. Season with salt, pepper and a scrape of nutmeg.
- "Good English bottled sauces"The period reference is to Worcestershire, mushroom ketchup, Harvey's sauce and similar. A teaspoon of Worcestershire stirred into the finished béchamel gives the intended effect; add it off the heat.
- FinishingSauced chicory takes well to a brief run under the grill with grated cheese and breadcrumbs, close to the gratin of witloof that remains a familiar Belgian dish.
Witloof chicory is a Belgian invention of the nineteenth century, generally traced to growers around Brussels who found that chicory roots stored in dark cellars threw up tender blanched shoots; the vegetable spread from there into French and English markets, where it acquired the confusing name Belgian endive. That such a homely vegetable rates an entry at all reflects the circumstances of this book: The Belgian Cook Book was compiled in Britain during the First World War from recipes contributed by Belgian refugees, and its purpose was as much to introduce British households to Belgian cooking as to preserve it. The suggestion of stirring "some of the good English bottled sauces" into the bechamel is a small, telling piece of that exchange, a Belgian vegetable meeting the Worcestershire and mushroom ketchup already standing in the host kitchen's cupboard.