Belgian Endive As Finger Food
Plus an emergency salad, for when you realize you forgot (?) to make a salad.
NOW THAT WE’VE ENCOURAGED YOU to eat salad with your hands, we’re somewhat obligated to offer you at least one other way to do that. (However, if you’re truly one of us you’ve been eating salad with your hands for years, even when people were watching.)
I was inspired to create today’s salad by the Eric Ripert cookbook I keep bringing up, Vegetable Simple, which is one of my favorite fancy-chef cookbooks right now, partly because of its beautiful simplicity. As someone whose job once included translating and simplifying fancy-chef recipes so that people who read the newspaper could make them at home, I can tell you that some chefs believe we all have and use 80 Mesh Xanthan Gum and Charcoal Konro Grills and meat glue.
It was often infuriating. Ripert’s book is not; the salad that inspired me is nothing more than a pinwheel of endive leaves surrounding a small pool of delicious blue-cheese cream; diners dip/scoop—no utensils required. It’s brilliant and it’s also very pretty. I’m going to include Ripert’s original recipe today, at the end, along with an emergency salad to make when realize you’ve forgotten to make a salad.
But first, my own invention. I’m still in a citrus state of mind, so the complements I choose for the delicately sweet bitterness of Belgian endive are oranges and oil-cured olives—with an orange-flavored goat cheese cream. I’ve reawakened my love for goat cheese. All of this turned out even more delicious than I’d anticipated.