Cooking From My Cookbooks: Endive au buerre

Recently, I was leafing through one of my favorite cookbooks in my collection. La Grande Cuisine Illustrée by Salles and Montagne. This copy, originally published in 1902 was previously owned by Jeremiah Tower and purchased from Omnivore Books at a hefty price. High enough that as I walked home, my bank called me to make sure there wasn’t any fraud. High enough that my credit rating took a dip a couple of days later. And yet, despite all that, I clutched that book, and still do occasionally, to my chest in glee. It is one of my favorite things in the world and I treasure it. Known for having an impeccable palate, a flawless sense of hospitality and larger than life personality, Chef Tower has written extensively about his life as a chef and arbiter of culinary taste in the US. I try to consider what dishes made from this book himself and which ones inspired him the most. I frequently (gently) leaf through the book trying to find something inspiring and I found the following recipe while looking for something simple to make. Often, as much as I’d like to make a recipe, I realize it will take some advanced planning because there’s a long list of ingredients that I don’t have on hand. This just means there’s a long list of dishes I want to make and I just need to plan for them.

After translating this recipe, it struck me as an easy seasonally appropriate dish for early spring and aside from the vegetables, I had everything else in the house already. A quick jaunt to the vegetable stand and I was ready to go. I paired this with other classic French bourgeoisie style dishes that would do well for a dinner party.

Let’s start with the original French.

Endives au beurre.

Pour quatre personnes, prenez :

1000 grammes d' endives, 150 grammes de beurre, 6 grammes de sel,

1 décigramme de poivre.

Épluchez les endives et, si elles ne renferment pas de sable, essuyez-les sans les laver; autrement, lavez-les rapidement sans les laisser tremper, pour éviter de leur donner de l'amertume, et séchez-les dans un linge avant de les faire cuire.

Faites fondre le beurre dans une casserole, mettez les endives, salez, poivrez, placez par-dessus un papier beurré et laissez mijoter à tout petit feu, en casserole ouverte, pendant deux heures.

Ce mode de préparation des endives est surtout recommandable au début de la

saison.

On peut préparer de même des laitues et des scaroles.

After the jump, we’ll translate things into English and get cooking.