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Escarole Salad with Eggs
Remove the outer leaves from a large white head of escarole and detach leaves from stalk. If tolerably clean carefully wipe it without washing. Place in a salad bowl with six thoroughly cold, hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters, season with four tablespoons dressing, mix well and serve.
A three-line salad that depends entirely on the quality of the escarole and the temperature of the eggs. Two of its instructions are worth ignoring.
- Wash it anywayThe advice to wipe rather than wash probably reflects a kitchen with no quick, reliable way to dry a leaf, though shaking baskets were in use. Escarole's cupped, curling leaves are among the best grit traps in the produce aisle; soak the separated leaves in a deep bowl of cold water, lift them out, and spin dry.
- "Four tablespoons dressing"The recipe does not say which dressing; presumably a French dressing, roughly three parts oil to one part vinegar with salt and pepper. Four tablespoons is light for a whole head plus six eggs; you may want six to eight, added in stages so the leaves are coated rather than sitting in a pool.
- A large white headProbably a head blanched pale at the centre, which is the tender, least bitter part. Supermarket escarole is often greener and sharper throughout; use the inner leaves here and save the tough dark outer ones for soup or braising.
- Thoroughly cold eggsNot fussiness: chilled eggs quarter cleanly instead of crumbling, and they will not warm the leaves. Boil the eggs well ahead and chill them fully before cutting.
- YieldOne large head and six eggs makes a substantial first course for four to six, or a light lunch for three. Dress it at the table; escarole holds up better than lettuce but still collapses if it sits.
- Seasoning the eggsThe original seasons only the salad as a whole. Salt and pepper the cut eggs directly before tossing; the dressing clings to the leaves and largely slides off the whites.
Escarole is a broad-leaved chicory, Cichorium endivia, and the name reaches English through the Italian scarola and French scarole, ultimately from Late Latin escariola, from esca, "food." The combination of a bitter chicory, hard-boiled eggs and a sharp oil-and-vinegar dressing is familiar in southern Italian and French home cooking, where the fat of the yolk blunts the bitterness of the leaf much as the oil does.