recipe-driven observations from the sublime to the ridiculous
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My weakness for a crunchy endive salad is, in my mind, legendary. My love of endive in general is well documented – I once put together a cracker jack food trivia team with the sole goal of winning a 6-pound box of endive for myself. All the other prizes – coffee and wine and gift certificates galore – I let the others divvy up as they saw fit. But the box of endive: that was all mine.
And then I made an Endive Walnut Salad, and it was good.
We ate dinner last week in an industrial space that had been re-done into a residence and studio that was so stunning that Ernest jumped up and down as he shouted “Mama, this is so cool!”
I had to agree. The space was cool, the company delightful, and the food perfection. I was offered the serving bowl filled this endive, herb, kumquat salad and took way more than my fair share. I have since made it three times for myself for lunch. I’m making it now, while the kumquats are plentiful.
Kumquat endive salad
This is the ultimate end-of-winter-almost-spring salad. The bitter chicory of winter with the bright tart sweetness of citrus and the fresh green promise of spring herbs. You might not be able to have a real spring salad yet – there is no asparagus in here, no hidden fiddleheads – but it’s starting to seem like you will if you just hang in there.
4 Belgian endives
about 10 sprigs parsley
about 10 sprigs mint
10 kumquats
2 tablespoons lemon juice (Meyer lemon juice works nicely here, too)
1 1/2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil (nothing too strong!)
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon salt
Cut off ends of the endive and pull apart into leaves. Cut leaves into bite size pieces, if you like, and put all leaves into a salad or serving bowl.
Pull off the leaves from the parsley sprigs and put them with the endive leaves. Pinch off the mint leaves and tear them into smaller pieces and add them to the mix. Cut the kumquats into quarters and throw them in.
In a small bowl, mix lemon juice, oil, and salt. Stir or whisk together an drizzle over salad. Toss salad to coat everything evenly with the dressing.
It must be fall. Braised endive (one of my favorite things in the world, pictured left)), mushroom wild rice, and chicken for dinner. The chicken. Let me tell you about the chicken. Yes, it was spatchcocked (is there a better food word? come on–tell me what it is); that is, I cut out the backbone and then pressed the whole thing as flat as possible before smearing it with a paste of 1 Tbsp. smoked paprika, 1 tsp. ground cumin, 1 tsp. salt, a sprinkle of cayenne, and about 1 Tbsp. lime juice (lemon would have worked too) and grilling it (skin-down over high heat for about 10 minutes and then until done skin-up over indirect heat, which was about 35 minutes). And that was all fine and good, but the thing that interested me most was that it was from our first share in the Clark Summit Farm Meat CSA.
Yep, once a month we get a bunch of frozen animal parts (a.k.a. “meat”) as well as a dozen of the most beautiful, delicious, silky eggs I’ve ever cracked, eaten, or held. As I’ve said before, when you start with a good bird, cooking it and keeping it moist isn’t such an issue. That theory was born out last night. I was distracted–by work, by Ernie having a friend over, by a thousand things–and was not focused on making that chicken the best that it could be. It didn’t get the skin-drying air-chill I like to do, I barely remembered to pre-salt it, I was late on turning down the heat to avoid overcooking the poor thing. None of that mattered. The meat was–and I really hate to use this word–succulent.
