Pan Roasted Endive with Gremolata

This pan roasted endive works well with the slow baked salmon I made yesterday. It’s one of those perfect pairings that incorporates bitter, salt and sour. Endive can taste quite bitter and is the main reason people don’t eat it that much. Here in the Netherlands you can find it everywhere and is quite common in the Dutch cuisine.

Endive is grown in the dark, so that the leaves don’t open up and stay tight together in a little bulb and the color stays creamy light yellow. If exposed to light for too long the color will turn green. When buying endive, you want to check the color to see if it’s mostly white with only the tops turning slightly pale green or reddish-purple. Endive turns bitter once it’s been exposed to light, it’s the color pigmentation that develops the bitterness in this vegetable, so pay close attention to the color when buying and eat it as soon as possible.

The whole process of growing endive in the dark was an accidental discovery by a Belgian farmer in 1831 which is why it’s also commonly known as Belgian endive. He saved some chicory root after harvest in his cellar with the intention of roasting them and making a coffee substitute, the rest is history.