1 hour ago, weinoo said:Yeah @liamsaunt, as @Franci mentions, from the research I was doing about the 3 different chicories I received this week, the outer leaves are edible cooked.
By the way, @Franci, the fish you are getting is beautiful and making me envious.
Back to cicoria, the 2 that I have used so far have been quite bitter - so I was wondering - do you ever blanch any of the cicoria?
Like Heidi, I like my bitter vegetables very bitter but in Puglia, because of the soil, the wild chicory is very, very bitter and also the rapini, not like the supermarket stuff you buy here. Also, things like SONCHUS OLERACEUS, we call it sivoni, are usually blanched first. The most traditional recipes are boiled wild chicory with dry fava, or blanch and then sauté with garlic oil and a little bit of peperoncino. Cicorie e polpette is food of my childhood but lamb pieces and chicory is good too (callaredda), both have pecorino cheese grated on top, no parmigiano. Also very traditional is blanching the chicory and cooking them in stock and than they go in a pan in the oven with some beaten egg on top (with pecorino) and they make a sort of soufflé, it does’t really turn into a frittata. In all the recipes chicory is always blanched. I think if I had really wild chicory I’d blanch myself too not because of the bitterness more because it needs to soften somewhat before sautéing. But if you find too bitter, go ahead and blanch it before cooking in other ways.
