March 19th
2007
Food shopping can be fun. Most times. Except perhaps when you find yourself in situations where a) you bump into badly informed, impolite or grumpy vendors, b) have to wait in line at the cheese counter and the eldery lady just ahead of you entangled herself in a debate about whether she wants to go with the young Gouda or its aged brother or c) have your three kids in tow and are trying to avoid casualties fighting your way through the sweets department of the store. The last point actually brings back vivid and not necessarily positive memories of my au pair time in London, another reason I regularly admire the calmness of moms keeping their kids-on-a-sugar-high in check while chipping away from an excessive shopping list.
The cliché of an unhurried stroll over the local market with nothing but friendly greeting vendors and an affable chat here and there is not the common reality. On a regular working day food shopping is mostly an inevitable task squished in between demanding work projects and private appointments - it needs to be done if you don't want to be confronted with a yawning void in your fridge. This is where efficiency pays off and planning ahead saves you nerves, time and money. That is... well, in theory. While I am a planning type of person (easily mastering shopping for clothes & shoes), I'm lousy if it comes to being efficient at food shopping. I tend to be all over the place Munich to get exactly what I want and need, but in no sensible order. In the end I manage to keep the fridge full, but I feel it could be so much less running around...
And to make things worse, I change shopping plans on the fly without having an alternative plan at hand - makes sense? I rarely manage to stick with the shopping list I leave the house with, oftentimes seasonal products jump right at me, begging to be part of the next culinary happening. And that's the problem, seasonal products are great, but it's killing me to quickly come up with a recipe and thus justify the purchase right then and there.
Now what to do with the 3 heads of chicory I got at the market stall at Weißenburger Street? I successfully missed to hear that inner little voice, assuring me that chicory is probably not what I wanted and besides it has never been a regular in our kitchen. Back home and in need of a quick dinner fix, the three heads gave me a little headache until... until I thought of bacon: Is there anything that cannot be turned into something delish with just a bit of bacon?
Bacon is always readily available in my kitchen, can't image the the day I run out of it and it would be a horrible day that's for sure. It was just as easy done as said, the chicory got nicely flavored and baking it in the oven turned the crisp salad into a soft and moist vegetable, reminding me a little of cooked white asparagus. Most of its bitterness was gone and the crunchy crust perfected this one-dish meal. Hooray to spontaneous shopping list changes and may the chicory season never end!
Preheat the oven to 180°C (~355°F) and prepare the gratin dish or baking form with a little butter or olive oil.
Remove any outer, limp leaves of the chicory heads, slice lengthways in two halves (wash if necessary), cut out the bitter core and arrange in the dish, cut side up. Dust with sugar to balance the bitterness, decorate with stripes of bacon and small pieces of butter and bake in the oven for about 10 to 15 minutes (the tips of the chicory may turn light brown and the bacon will have become a little crisp).
Remove from the oven and turn the heat up to 200°C (~390 °F). Spoon some of the melted butter over the chicory halves and season with coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper. Mix breadcrumbs and freshly grated Parmesan cheese, then graciously cover the chicory with them. In case you have a few older bread rolls sitting around, cut them up in smaller pieces and let your blender do the rest until you're happy with the size of crumbs. Fresh thyme leaves and some more butter pieces are optional.
Bake in the oven for a few more minutes (5-10), until the crust takes on a nice, golden brown color and the chicory has become almost translucent and soft. I usually turn the oven fan on as well as the grill, but be alert, this will accelerate the process a lot - keep an eye on it.
Release from the oven, serve as an appetizer or together with boiled potatoes as a main dish and find out, that chicory despite its well manifested bitter rep, can be your best friend ;)
Chicory gratin with bacon
own creation
Prep time: 10min., baking: 20-25min.
.
Ingredients (serves 2):
for the baking form: a little butter or olive oil
3 to 4 heads chicory, cleaned and halved
2-3 tbsp sugar
~50 g butter
4-5 thin slices of bacon or Pancetta, cut in smaller stripes
coarse sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
~5 tbsp breadcrumbs
~5 tbsp freshly grated Parmesan cheese
optional: a few fresh thyme leaves
No,no,no, Nicole......don´t remove the bitter core from the chicory! That´s the clue of this vegetable and gives him the unique character.
All the Best,
Martin
I'm having a hard time trying to understand the merits of chicory, for me it is utterly bitter and not very pleasing, but I only have eaten it uncooked. On the other hand, the use of bacon placates me and I might give it a final chance to win me over.
Delicious combination. Isn't it funny how great recipes pop up naturally when you least expect them?
Going shopping and deciding what I want was one of the reasons why my boyfriend and I decided to give the Ökokiste a try. We get a weekly delivery of organic fruit & veg, and then we have to use it up. When we started doing this, we decided to go with the regional box that has produce from around Bavaria and Austria (the definition of "regional" being a bit broad) because we felt that we weren't really in touch with the seasonal range of food any more - the supermarket range being always pretty much the same, and we don't really take time to go to markets.
Sometimes it's a bit of a challenge because we don't know what to do with the stuff, but so far it's been really good! Plus, there's less carrying of shopping and we get stuff that we might not have bought if we went shopping ourselves.
mmmm! I used to think I didn't like chicory too, but when I moved to France I discovered that baked chicory with bacon or ham is a marriage made in heaven. In France we pre-cook the chicory (I braise it in butter with a bit of sugar till it caramelises), then wrap each head in a slice of ham, cover with cheese sauce and breadcrumbs, and bake till bubbling and golden.
Most important rule: don't cook it in water! I think that's what makes it unpleasantly bitter.
PS your blog is just beautiful -- best-looking food blog I've ever seen!
What doesn't taste better with bacon and Parmesan?
Great idea.
[...] Chicory gratin with bacon (deliciousdays) Überbackener Chicoree mit Speck [...]
Chicory is great. I love it drizzled with a blue cheese sauce (double cream with blue cheese melted into it) and a handful of chopped walnuts sprinked on top.
I've been looking at the heads of chicory in the supermarket for the last few weeks and wondering what I could do with them. You have given me the answer.
Also, thanks Veronica... that sounds great too. I will definitely have to give one or other recipe a try.
And I have to agree... beautiful looking site!
These are beautiful pictures. I cooked something like you some weeks ago: baked chicory. Have you ever tried chicory with pasta: it´s delicious: chicory-pasta-sauce
I made this chicory-recipy tonight and it was light and LECKER.
By the way, I would add 10-15min. more and also add some white-wine......a must is to use panchetta instead of bacon, as panchetta shows more finesse.
Greetings from Berlin,
Martin
I was also inspired by this recipe last night: I had chicory, leek (cut up vertically), red long turkish peppers and giant mushrooms. Used pancetta, as that was what I had on hand, some leftover cabrales from madrid replaced the parmiggiano and olive oil in place of butter. It was light and yummy. Thanks for the inspiration, Nicky!
Mjam, eure Bilder machen einem richtig Appetit. Weiter so!
Chicory? Wow, this is so new to me. Until now chicory was something in instant coffee. Is there a season during which this is available?
Original idea : Chicory, parseman, pancetta ... all good things !
Since I started braising or pan-frying chicory and radicchio, the consumption of these two bitter salads almost doubled in our kitchen. It is so much better!
You are so right about bacon! I don't have it around all the time, alas, but when I do, I make the most of it. One of my favorite uses of it is to chop up a couple or few strips and sauté them, then sauté vegetables in the grease [with a little olive oil added, perhaps]. Toss the veggies and reserved cooked bacon with some cooked pasta and sprinkle on some freshly grated parmesan. Fast and delicious!
Everything is better with bacon! I think you've indeed cracked the chicory code here (chicory's never been one of my favorites either) and formulated a dish to convert even the most unconvinced,
Now you've gone and changed my plans. I was going to make a salad with chicory (we call it endive in the US), pears, walnuts, blue cheese and a mustardy sherry vinaigrette, but it's still cold out, we've got about a meter of snow outside and I've got bacon in my freezer. Destiny indeed -- and serendipity.
Chicory ... I've always thought they looked pretty and interesting, but never had a reason to buy them. Thanks for the tip.
Hallo Nicky,
nice interview at Spiegel online today!
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,473178,00.html
Greetings from Berlin,
Martin
This sounds so tasty. I will be trying it soon...since I am growing tired of chicory salads. Thanks.
Hey - this is my first visit here - great blog!
I love chicory - though it's not that often I get it - I think it goes really well with bacon and particularly with a good cheese sauce made from a bechamel.. The same recipe can be made with leeks too, if you really don't like chicory.
Endive (thank you, Mary!)! Now I know what chicory is!
hello there, great job on the spontaneous shopping and cooking! i try my best to try to stick to my list but sometimes it's so hard. like yesterday when i saw quarter pound niman ranch beef franks at trader joe's. :) your post has inspired me though. maybe a trip to the farmer's market this weekend will do me good. thanks!
Dorothee, I haven't heard anything other than praise about the Ökokiste, but I'm just not sure I'm flexible enough for it. Maybe I should just just skip my concerns and give it a try?
Veronica, "marriage made in heaven", you knew you would get me with this expression, right? Sounds fantastic and will definitely be tried soon ;)
Rike, No, not yet, but that's on my list, too :)
Martin, Glad you liked the recipe! Funny you mentioned adding white wine, because we were taking about that variation, too. I'd say I prefer the basic version, but to prepare a more elegant dish, that's a perfectly valid (and surely tasty!) alternative. The baking time is more or less a personal preference, I like mine to still have a little "bite", so 20 to 25 minutes worked fine.
Manisha, In Germany its main season is winter, but it is oftentimes available outside the cold months, too. Check with a local vegetable calender, which should be easy to find via Google.
Brandon, Ahh, another bacon lover! I'd categorize this recipe as "dirty tricks", at least this is what my nutrition-conscious aunt would say...
Mary, Serendipity is a more than welcome part in my kitchen, too ;) The fact that chicory and endive can be used synonymously was new to me, so I double checked with Wikipedia and other sources and found out that it depends on what sort of endive one's referring to (Belgian vs. curly).
Hi again
Confusingly, chicory is called endive in French, whereas in UK English at any rate, endive is the curly salad leaves that the French call frisée.And the chicory added to coffee is called .. chicorée :-)
Chicory is delicious simply grilled with oil and a splash of tabasco. Even better is red chicory, otherwise known by its Italian name radicchio di Treviso.
What a wonderfull idea to make chicory! Sounds so tasty that I'll try this out the next time I spot them at the supermarket. I've made them together with noodles. Great when you're surrounded by vegetarians and not sure what to cook ;-) Spaghetti with radicicchio PS: Great pictures, makes you want to bite in them.
good idea, it seems so delicious!