Red endives: using this beautiful leaf properly

[Gifted Gourmet]

I bought a number of these gorgeous leaves and wanted to know what to do with them short of simply adding them to a salad ...

some advise that cooking them dulls the colors .. but others say quite the opposite ...

have you had any experience with these beautiful endives?

[rooftop1000]

There is something about cooking Red/Purple veg that has to do with the Ph....they can turn gray-green or brighter if cooked with an acid or a base...

Alton did a show with red cabbage that explained it

tracey

not much help

[Shaya]

Here they are in a risotto dish I made last summer with wild mushrooms and pancetta. You can leave out the pancetta of course . They added a lovely bitter note, and the color, I think, is gorgeous until they become cooked. Then they turned a brownish color. If I had been cooking for an "audience" I would have left some raw and them into the warm mushrooms to retain the vibrant color.

[Gifted Gourmet]

I must admit, Shaya, that I very much like your risotto dish made with endives and will consider using them in this manner ..

How about stuffing the raw leaves? seems I saw this done somewhere ... very pretty ...

[djyee100]

One of the most imaginative risottos I've ever eaten included red endive. This was at the Cafe Rouge restaurant in Berkeley. The risotto's ingredients (besides rice and stock) were: leeks, Portobello mushrooms, salsify (oyster plant), and red endive (endigia).

The portobello mushrooms were shaved against a mandolin to form thin, long, ribbony strips. Their texture in the risotto was wonderful.

The cheese, Crescenza, was not mixed into the risotto, but placed in a few cloud-like dollops on top of the hot risotto before service. Very attractive!

All the colors and textures were so pleasing, and the risotto tasted delish.

[Reignking]

There is something about cooking Red/Purple veg that has to do with the Ph....they can turn gray-green or brighter if cooked with an acid or a base...

Alton did a show with red cabbage that explained it

tracey

not much help

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I believe that he cooked it with apples? Anyway, if you have Cookwise handy, Shirley addresses it in that, somewhere, too.

I saw these in Whole Foods yesterday, too

[Franci]

it's one of my favourite side dishes. I generally cook it in two ways: split in half and cooked on a charcoal grill, then dress with vinegar and evoo.

Or braised with butter and deglazed with sugar and vinegar.

Or braised and used for stuffing a nice strudel, tart, stuffed focaccia. As for radicchio, I love the combination with gorgonzola.

Cooking brings out the sweetness in vegetables and to me that is true with many other greens that I find undercooked in restaurants. In this case, to me taste is more important.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Or braised with butter and deglazed with sugar and vinegar.

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This is something I will try this evening .. it certainly sounds delicious prepared in this way ...

[russ parsons]

that's radicchio di treviso. it's not quite as pungent as chioggia or tardivo, so it can be used in salads. i still prefer it cooked.

[Franci]

that's radicchio di treviso. it's not quite as pungent as chioggia or tardivo, so it can be used in salads. i still prefer it cooked.

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This is radicchio di treviso

[russ parsons]

i think we're looking at the same thing, with slight variations because of different plants. fun fact: the same guy who perfected "forcing" belgian endive developed the "forcing" for radicchio tardivo.

[Gifted Gourmet]

The red endives that I have are not radicchio di Treviso because they look quite different:

Radicchio di treviso

[Aileen]

I made this simple recipe for a party last week, it was a big hit: Endive with Smoked Trout and Herbed Cream Cheese

I love the flavor of raw endive, myself.

[Gifted Gourmet]

I made this simple recipe for a party last week, it was a big hit:  Endive with Smoked Trout and Herbed Cream Cheese

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The reviews on this dish were, to a person, virtually uniformly positive .. and I like the idea of the saltiness of the smoked trout balancing the bitterness of the endive and the tartness of the dill.

I will definitely make this on the weekend .. elegance amid the Super Bowl nachos and chili? Nope! Never!

Just this with a sparkling white wine ... Thanks for the link, Aileen!

[russ parsons]

The red endives that I have are not radicchio di Treviso because they look quite different:

Radicchio di treviso

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not to belabor the point, but i've spent a lot of time with radicchio and i do believe that it is. there is a lot of variation within a varietal depending upon how it's grown and what the specific strain is. i could be wrong of course, but check out the american grown radicchio di treviso on this page:

european vegetable specialties

by the way, the guy who runs this outfit, lucio gomiero, is the biggest grower of radicchio in the world. fascinating guy. he farms out of salinas most of the time (though they have leased fields all over), but he also runs two tre bicchieri wineries in italy.

[Shaya]

I buy radicchio and red-endive very frequently. Pretty much whenever I see them and they look healthy. The photo at the opening of this thread has, to my eye, the delicate tip and veins that I associate with endive. In fact, it looks very much like an endive that has been dipped in beet juice.

The radicchio de treviso leaves that I have seen are more hardy, less pointy at the tip, and less smooth:

That said, I see no reason why the two could not be used interchangeably in most recipes - except perhaps my radicchio fritters, which involves deep-frying, something the delicate endive may not appreciate.

[Pontormo]

Melissa's original photograph is of a relatively new type of cichorium intybus that is sold at Whole Foods either as red endive or Red Belgian endive (strictly speaking not accurate) for more money per pound than its paler ancestor. It is bred from Belgian endives and radicchio di Treviso, thus the resemblance to both parents.

It is sometimes called California endive in recognition of its place of origin.

Edited January 30, 2007 by Pontormo (log)