A classic bistro starter, and a lesson in balance: bitter leaves, sweet fruit, salty cheese, crunchy nuts.
Arrange the leaves like a flower, tuck pear slices between them, scatter cheese and pecans, and dress at the last moment. Use the leaves as scoops.
The dish of my childhood. My grandmother made it every Sunday from November to March, and the kitchen windows always fogged up.
Serve with mashed potatoes. Nothing else is required, though a cold Belgian beer does not hurt.
Every winter someone asks me what the difference is between endive, chicory, witlof and radicchio. The honest answer: they are all Cichorium intybus (plus its cousin Cichorium endivia), and the names change depending on which side of the Channel you are standing.
The pale, torpedo-shaped heads grown in the dark from forced roots. Crisp, juicy, gently bitter. Raw in salads, braised in butter, or wrapped in ham and baked under cheese.
The Italian red chicories. Chioggia is round like a small cabbage, Treviso precoce is long and tight, Treviso tardivo looks like a firework and is the best of them all. Grill it, roast it, stir it into risotto.
Catalogna chicory shoots, a Roman winter speciality. You slice the hollow shoots into thin strips and soak them in iced water until they curl.
Technically endivia, but they behave the same in the kitchen. Escarole is lovely wilted into beans; frisée wants bacon and a poached egg.
The large-rooted varieties are dried, roasted and ground into the famous coffee substitute. More on that in the Root & Coffee section.
Rule of thumb: the paler the leaf, the milder the taste. Bitterness is a feature, not a flaw — balance it with fat, salt, acid or sweetness and it sings.