What a show-off stunt it is to grow endive. Practically a parlor trick. Of course, you expect people like four-season growing experts Elliot Coleman and Barbara Damrosch in Harborside to go around growing endive. Or maybe the Belgians when they are not brewing beer or raising horses.
But we do it, too, as our endive makes its lengthy trip from seed to plant to big fat root to the cellar then to the bathroom closet then finally the kitchen and dinner table.
The endive you see in stores, the tightly closed, pale chartreuse and white sprout, called “chicon” pronounced “shee-kohn,” is the second years’ growth of a big loopy lettuce-like plant that is also called chicory, or French or Belgian endive.
You’ve probably eaten them, the boat-like leaves separated with fancy stuff like crab salad in them. Sometimes a lettuce-like endive is sold as a salad vegetable, and sometimes it is blanched by being protected from the sun while growing to tenderize the leaves. You can arrange stuffed endive leaves in concentric circles like a giant flower, the smallest leaves in the center and larger ones on the outer ring. It is spectacular. Some cooks braise or bake them in a sauce.
We dedicate a space in the garden for the entire season to let the endive grow out to the full size it can attain. In the fall, after a couple frosts, Jamie pulls them up, whacks off the dying leaves, and sticks the roots-big, parsnip-like things, a bit on the hairy side, down cellar in a spackle bucket.
When we have used up our Brussels sprouts and put a big dent in the cabbage supply, toward the end of January, and are ready for some other kind of fresh leafy thing, Jamie plants four or five endive roots in a combination of peat moss and soil in yet another spackle bucket, waters them and sticks them in the bathroom closet.
Bathroom closet? At our house, the bathroom, which is insulated well and situated right over the kitchen where the cookstove burns all day, stays fairly warm. The closet is dark, and the endive likes the warm and dark combination very much. Each root sends up one elegant “chicon,” the tight little sprout. I cut them off, and use them several ways, both raw and cooked, though we prefer raw because we hanker for salad stuff. I like to have people over for dinner about then because we can say oh-so-casually, oh-so-obnoxiously, “Oh, yes, we grew these ourselves” and our guests say “ooh, ahh, however did you do that,” and we all troop up to the bathroom to view the endive.
The bonus round is the secondary set of sprouts that ring the top of the root, growing more loosely and prolifically. I go to the bathroom for salad, night after night. I love the crunch and slight bitterness of the endive; I mix it with grated carrot, a little chopped apple, or pickled shallot for an all-island, mid-winter salad.
Here are some other ways to fix endive.
Slice the endive chicons lengthwise, brush with olive oil, and grill them face down, briefly, then turn them over and grill the other side until you see just a bit of golden color. Serve warm with vinaigrette and a sprinkle of chopped walnuts.
Peel off a few of the larger leaves and lay two or three on salad plates. Slice the centers thinly until you have shreds of endive which you sprinkle on the larger leaves, crumble blue cheese or feta cheese on top and dress with vinaigrette or your favorite salad dressing.
Wrap one chicon per serving in thinly sliced country ham. Place in a baking dish, and add a bit of cream or béchamel sauce to the dish. Lay thinly sliced Swiss cheese over the top and bake at 350 for thirty to forty minutes until the chicon are fork tender.
What a stunt. Look Ma, no greenhouse, no cold frame even. Just a spackle bucket and a bathroom.
Sandy Oliver cooks and writes on Islesboro.