Endives in Béchamel

Well lookie here … another recipe fresh off the heels of the ratatouille. I should mention that I kind of have something in the works to split my blog into two parts so that those who are just interested in the recipes can follow one feed, and those who have no interest whatsoever can completely ignore them. How’s that for considerate?

I know, I know.  I do try.

But it’s been on my mind to do at least one endive recipe with all the enticing crispy endives I see floating around in the stores. And so le voila!

Oh. Do you know what an endive is?

It’s a white type of chicory salad that has a lovely bitter taste, and which is delicious when prepared with special care. Actually, the endive is related to the daisy family so you can pluck its leaves to discern whether he loves me, he loves me not.

Start some water boiling in a large pot and preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C.

Now it’s time to start the béchamel sauce. Put 2 ½ cups of milk in a small saucepan. Add ¼ teaspoon nutmeg. (Did you know that the French almost always put nutmeg in quiches? And mashed potatoes? And sauces like béchamel?)

Add 1/8 teaspoon white pepper and ½ teaspoon salt.

Now take a half of a small onion, and pin two bay leaves to each quarter using 4 cloves. Like so. (cute huh?)

Put the onions in the milk and simmer on very low heat.

Meanwhile your water should be boiling so put the endives in.

You’ll want to cook them until you can stick a knife near the root with some ease. About 15 minutes or so. Then drain.

The milk should be ready – make sure to catch it before it boils over.

You can see here it’s starting to simmer and rise. Strain out the onion etc, and the milk scum. (Sorry I said the word scum. That’s gross. But it’s even grosser to leave the scum in the milk).

Now take 4 tablespoons of flour and 4 tablespoons of butter and put them in a skillet. Let it melt, start to brown ever so slightly, form little gummy balls and give off a nice fragrance.

Then you want to add the milk a little at a time over very low heat.

Stir constantly.

And when you’ve added all the milk in, you will have absolutely perfect béchamel.

Two words about this sauce. First of all, if you’re in a pinch or feeling lazy, you can just pour regular milk slowly into the butter-flour mix as shown and then throw in the nutmeg, salt and pepper at the last minute. It’s still good without the onion-clove-bayleaf.

Second thing. If you’re making this gluten free, the easiest thing is to use corn starch. You could also try amaranth, chick pea or chestnut flour, which give  a nice consistency.

Cut the ends off the endives (don’t do this before you boil them or they will all fall apart).

Then slice them lengthwise in two, three or even four parts depending on how fat the endive is and how much of your dish you need to fill.

Squeeze the water out of each endive part so that your dish will not be watery.

Roll each endive in a half slice of ham (or turkey breast)

and place it in a 9×13 dish.

Cover it with the béchamel and grated swiss.

Bake at 350° for about 30 minutes or so. Until the cheese is melted and browned.

And because this might look just like any other cheesy casserole, let me hand you a plateful.

Vegetable-based and cheese-covered.  What’s not to love?!

To be honest, I’m not sure this dish will be a huge success with the kids, although you just never know until you try. And … it’s a bit risky to serve to guests – you know, being that it’s slices of ham wrapped around boiled salad and all. It also might be a bit much for you and your spouse to tackle just between the two you of you if you don’t want to be eating leftovers for days …

So, actually, never mind.

If you’d like to see more recipes, click here for my recipe page!

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