Chicory

With Will Steward, Living Larder

Native to Europe, chicory is a heritage vegetable that comes in many forms from root vegetable, to cover crop, to winter salad or in its rarest form… Puntarelle. We love chicory and its sharp, bitter taste needs to be dealt with carefully. We often leave our chicory in iced water once prepared, or dress it with salt and anchovies. Best of all, though, we simply griddle and dress it with olive oil. In the field, chicory is incredibly hardy and with careful planning it can provide a novel winter salad from October to March when its soft outer leaves break down to blanch the inner leaves, known as ‘chicons’. In this blanched form, chicory takes on its better-known names of Radicchio or Endive.

Ingredients 2 heads of chicory – we’ve used red and white endive 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar, plus extra to serve About 5 tbsp olive oil 1 squash, cut into wedges no more than 2cm wide – we’ve kept the skin on ours Leaves from a small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, chopped 100g hazelnuts, roughly chopped 150g of hard salty cheese – we used Gruyère Salt and black pepper Method Pre-heat the oven to 190°C/Gas 5 and heat a cast-iron griddle pan until really hot. Cut each radicchio head into quarters lengthways, keeping the root end intact. In a shallow bowl mix together the olive oil and vinegar – add the chicory quarters to the bowl and let it soak in the mixture – make sure all edges are well oiled and then season with salt. Put the squash wedges in a roasting tin and gently toss with salt, pepper and just enough oil to lightly coat. Roast for 20 minutes, or until cooked through. Meanwhile, griddle the chicory in batches – just a minute or two on each side to give the wedges colour. As each piece is done, lay it in the oil and vinegar in the bowl so it can soak up more of the dressing. Add the griddled chicory to the roasting pan along with the squash for the final 10 minutes of cooking. Put even amounts of squash and chicory on individual plates, sprinkle over the chopped parsley and hazelnuts. Finally, use a vegetable peeler to add shavings of the Gruyère to each dish.