Chicken Salad on Endive Recipe | Magnolia Days (2024)

FAQs

Do you need to wash endives? ›

No Need To Wash — Great Raw Or Cooked

Once you're ready to use endive, there's no need to wash it. The leaves have not been exposed to soil and are harvested and packed under sanitary conditions. For appetizers requiring a whole leaf just trim the bottom and separate the leaves.

Endives can be enjoyed both raw or cooked. When raw, endives are crisp and bitter, making them a great addition to salads. When cooked, endive's sharp flavor softens into a mellow, nutty sweetness.

But some substtiutes for endives include arugula, radicchio, watercress, chicory leaves, romaine lettuce, and napa cabbage.

“Raw in a salad, endives will be most tasty with a dressing of olive oil and hazelnut, cider vinegar and pine nuts, which a touch of sugar, by breaking the natural bitterness, will soften. When cooked, they should be blanched in salted water and the cone-shaped heel removed to remove their bitterness.

Belgian endive leaves can be peeled apart as convenient serving platforms for amuse-bouche, dips, or other appetizers. Cut in half, Belgian endive heads can be brushed with olive oil and lightly grilled, roasted like brussels sprouts, or even baked in a gratin with ham and gruyere.

How to store endive. To keep endives fresh, store in a plastic bag in the refrigerator for 3 to 5 days. Wait to wash the endives until you're ready to use them. Keeping them out of the light will help preserve their flavor.

Fresh endive should be quite firm and have a vibrant green color. If it's slimy, moldy, excessively soft, or has a pungent smell, it's time to discard it. Additionally, if the leaves become yellow, brown, or black, this indicates that it's past its prime and should no longer be consumed.

Endive is exceptionally high in potassium, fiber, and folate—three valuable nutrients for heart health. Potassium is a well-established blood pressure lowering agent. 5 It counters the effects of high sodium in the blood with urination and helps release tension in the blood vessels.

Endive (/ˈɛndaɪv, -dɪv, ˈɑːndiːv/) is a leaf vegetable belonging to the genus Cichorium, which includes several similar bitter-leafed vegetables. Species include Cichorium endivia (also called endive), Cichorium pumilum (also called wild endive), and Cichorium intybus (also called chicory).

You'll typically find the different varieties of endive in salads, but they are sturdy greens and can also be cooked. You may see them grilled or used in dips. You might even see the cup-shaped leaves of the white endive used as a chip or cracker substitute with dips and spreads.

Is endive a lettuce or a vegetable? ›

While an endive's crispy, crunchy stalks may look a bit like lettuce, the vegetable is actually categorized separately as a naturally bitter, leafy perennial plant from the Cichorium (chicory) genus and Asteraceae family.

Different names are even given to the same species depending on how the plant is grown (more on this below), and in the case of the Belgian variety, called “endive” in the U.S. but botanically grouped as chicory.

The same popular variety of lettuce is referred to as Romaine in the U.S. and Cos in the U.K., while the plant called endive in the States is often called chicory in England.

endive (curly lettuce):

scarola f.

Frisee / Curly Endive

And this endive variety is actually a two-fer: the tender inner leaves are perfect in a salad mix, and sturdier outer leaves are best in heat-applications.

Note that the cut surfaces of endive can discolor quickly, so it's best to either wait until the last minute before prepping it or soak it in lemon water if you're cutting it in advance.

In its raw form, endive is crisp and bitter, often considered a bit of an acquired taste. If the vegetable had its own tagline, a good one would be “bitter crunch.” Cook the endive, however, and that bitterness all but melts away, revealing a soft, mellow, nutty, almost buttery flavor.