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Thursday, February 17, 2005
What do you do when you mistakenly order 4.14 lbs of endive from Safeway.com and they deliver it? Experiment. It's like what happened when I mistakenly ordered over 3 lbs of carrots.I seem to do this a lot, but I maintain it's not my fault -- it's the stupid, low-tech, frames-happy Safeway.com website that doesn't exactly tell me how much I'm getting. Once I made the mistake of ordering 1 endive and they delivered a plastic baggie with a single leaf in it. You might ask why I bother with ordering groceries from a website at all, but then we'd have to get into how I'm saving the environment by not having a car, and MUNI fares going up while MUNI routes are getting cut and, well, that way madness lies. ANYWAY. 5 lbs of endive. Last night I used them in a beet salad with candied pecans, blue cheese, and a nice port wine vinaigrette. It was...fine. But it wasn't blowing my clogs off. So, as I lay in bed a few unsatisfied hours later, I started thinking about what else I could do with the 6 lbs of endive and lo if I didn't have to restrain myself from dashing to the kitchen to start inventing right then and there. To my husband's relief, I managed to restrain myself until tonight. As soon as I got home, I cranked the oven up to 475 degrees and started quartering my endive lengthwise. Next, I tossed the pieces with salt, pepper, and olive oil and shoved them in the oven. Until our smoke alarm went off. Have no fear -- it always goes off. It seems to have a very low tolerance for my experiments. About 30 minutes later I pulled out my 7 lbs of roasted endive and dug in. And then I burned my tongue, so I thought it was a good idea to wait. Meh. See, I had such amazing success with the roasted cauliflower that I figured any roasted vegetable would bring me to that same state of caramelized nirvana. Sadly, that was not to be with my 8 lbs of endive. I mean, they were okay, but they were kind of soggy and a touch more bitter than I was expecting. I could've tossed them with a nut vinaigrette but I just didn't feel like it. I really wanted them to be perfect out of the oven. I salvaged the evening by putting another experiment into effect: spreading individual leaves with Gorgonzola dolce and drizzling with chestnut honey. It was a chicory dessert. And that's what you do with 10 lbs of endive. |
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2 Comments:
I never tried roasting them, they are so juicy to begin with, I can see where they might turn soggy.
They are excellent sauteed then braised though--they soften up and the flavor and textures concentrate. Slice them in half lengthwise and cook until brown in butter then add some chicken broth and cook another 10 minutes or so.
2/18/2005 7:49 AM
Oh, I've both sauteed and braised the little suckers, I was just hoping for an easy, no frills, no futzing on my part, roast. Ah, well -- that's why I love to experiment.
2/18/2005 9:46 AM
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