Braised Belgian Endives

About this Recipe

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By: Rachel

Belgian endives are one of the most delicious vegetables there are. Pleasantly bitter, fresh and crunchy, they can be enjoyed a myriad of ways including raw, roasted, broiled, stir-fried or braised.

I love to garden, and I especially love to grow my favorite produce. Any delicious fruit or vegetable is bound to be even more delicious when it is grown in your backyard under tender loving care and harvested at its peak, on your plate less than an hour after being plucked from the tree, vine, stalk, or soil in which it grows. 

So it was with dismay that I learned, thanks to Gardners’ Path, that one of my favorite vegetables, the Belgian endive, is nearly impossible to cultivate in the home garden. You must prepare a bed of loose, loamy, well-draining soil, completely free of rocks, in which to plant your seeds. Any fluctuation in temperature—unusually warm or cold; too dry, too much rain or moist air—can ruin the crop. 

If you are lucky enough for your seeds to germinate, you must force the heads to grow through a two-step process. Once the endives develop a deep taproot, you pull the entire plant (yes, really), and cut off its leaves. The plants must then be relocated to a cool, dark place for about two months, then replanted until mature (its leaves will turn red), anywhere from 80-140 days. 

At this point, you delicately remove the entire plant from the soil, roots and all—if you damage a root, the entire plant will rot—and trim both the leaves and the taproot. Then, the plants are relocated to a deep bucket filled with half peat moss, half sand, to a dark and cool area where the temperature is consistently between 32°-36°F (0°-2°C), and the humidity around 95%, for 60 days.

Still with me? After that, you transfer them to a warmer but still-cool place, like a basement, where you must cover them and ensure that they are exposed to no light whatsoever. In about a month, if you have done all of this correctly, you will have produced Belgian endives. 

Is it any wonder that they are so expensive? One wonders how they were ever cultivated in the first place. Regardless, I am glad that someone, somewhere along the line, figured it out, since they are absolutely delicious. There are so many ways to prepare endives, but the simple version below is my favorite. 

Serve as a side dish, or enjoy on its own as a dinner, when your committed carnivore husband is out of town for work and you get to eat just what you want for a few days.