Sunday, January 23, 2011

Butter-Braised Endive

Here's my second entry in the January Kitchen Play contest. It's kind of interesting this month because there was just a single ingredient than being a variety of products like the olives or the spices that were featured in previous contests.

Anyway, the contest is sponsored by Endive.com and obviously the ingredient was endive. The funny thing is that every time I go shopping for endive, I find just three of them. And they're quite small. The recipe I chose called for 12 small or 8 large endive, but I pared it down quite a bit to make just two endive. Because that's all I had.

Th recipe this time was for Butter-Braised Endive. It was similar to the first recipe I tried ... but different. Different enough that I'm glad I tried both recipes. When I served it, my husband commented that it tasted a bit like artichoke hearts. And in my house, that's a good thing.

Other than cutting the recipe down to size, I pretty much followed the original recipe, which was an adaptation of a Julia Child recipe. So of course it was good.

Butter Braised Endive

2 endive, ends trimmed and bruised leaves removed
Sprinkle of salt
1/2 cup water; more as needed
Lemon juice, to taste - about a teaspoon
2 tablespoons butter

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Place the endive in a stovetop and oven-safe pan or baking dish (I used a ceramic-coated cast iron gratin dish) and add the salt, lemon juice and butter. Add water to come about halfway up the side of the endive.

Cover with a lid or foil and simmer on medium-low heat until the endive are just tender, about 20 minutes. Remove the foil and place a piece of parchment over the endive. Place in the oven and bake for about 2 hours, checking the water level occasionally and added more as needed so the pan doesn't dry out.

Baste the endive if they seem to be drying out, or if you like basting - I didn't bother - the parchment seemed to do a pretty good job of keeping the moisture in. The endive are done when they're very tender.
Yum

1 comment:

Casey said...

You have totally piqued my attention, comparing the butter braised endive to artichokes. That's a good thing in our house, too! Only, artichokes can be expensive and require a little guesswork to nail the cooking time. So, butter braised endives may find a place in our regular rotation.

Thanks again for your spirit and good luck!

Best,
Casey

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