My Curly Endive Favourite - Pizza de la endibia

Curly Endive is a most handsome leafy green vegetable with an expansive rosette of curly edged leaves.  Europeans, especially those from Mediterranean countries,  enjoy endive's slightly bitter flavour, but here in New Zealand it' s not a vegetable easily found in shops. It may be because of its bitter reputation, so for me the only way to try endive is to grow it myself.

Curly endive in France is often called Frisée and Escarole - although Escarole is a variety that has flatter leaves and look more lettuce like in it's leaf.

The seeds grew easily and by early autumn I had transplanted many seedlings. All through winter I've been harvesting curly endive, using it to create a variety of salads.

Curly endive makes up the majority of this salad with an egg, avocado, bacon, some mizuna "red coral" and croutons. A great lunch salad.

Lettuce has had to step aside. Endive's robust flavour and not so fragile leaves work well with winter dishes. But the best recipe for endive arrived via one of the gardeners at our Sanctuary Community Garden. Corinne is Spanish and told me how to prepare endive pizza.

This pizza I have made quite a few times for friends, and has been really well received.

It's a little different from a standard pizza and a whole lot healthier. After all endive has only 17 calories per 100grams in weight, but has a high fibre content, plus vitamin A and K.

Pizza de la endibia

Curly endive in Spain is called la endibia so I think this recipe deserves to have its Spanish name, Pizza de la endibia.

Curly endive grows into quite a large head of green leaves so depending on how many pizzas you make, use half or a whole plant. You should prepare the endive before you start rolling out the pizza dough.

Prepared endive ready for the oven.

I roughly slice the leaves and place into a bowl. Add lemon zest, garlic crushed into salt and then mixed through the leaves using your fingers.  Season with salt and pepper, drizzle over some avocado or olive oil and finish with a good squeeze of lemon juice. Toss as you would a salad.

Finely grate some parmesan ready to sprinkle over the top or if you are lucky enough to have on hand some sliced fresh mozzarella.

The easiest pizza dough recipe I use is from River Cottage Baker Daniel Stevens ( from "River Cottage Handbook No.3: Bread") where he just mixes everything up at once, rather than dissolving the yeast separately. The finished dough will keep in the fridge for up to two weeks and will make up to 8 small pizzas.

Perfect Pizza Dough

250g strong white bread flour
250g plain white flour
5g powdered dried yeast
10g salt
325ml warm water
About 1 tbsp olive oil
1 handful coarse flour (semolina or polenta), for dusting

In a bowl, mix the flours, yeast, salt and water to form a sticky dough. Mix in the oil, then turn out on to a clean work surface and knead until smooth and silky.

After you have completed your kneading from a sticky mess to an elastic dough sprinkle with a little olive oil, and smear around the bowl to ensure the rising dough doesn't stick to the bowl.

Kneading takes time and the action of kneading ensures your pizza dough has the required elasticity to successfully make it roll out really thinly.   Cooking usually requires your constant attention but making bread dough is a repetitive action for your hands, allowing your mind wander anywhere. So when not pressed for time making bread can be a really relaxing activity. (Alternatively, if you have a mixer with a dough hook, mix the flours, yeast, salt and water on a low speed, add the oil and knead for 10 minutes or make the dough in a bread maker).

The dough is resting on a sunny bench top at my friend Julia's Matua Lodge in Tauranga. It has one of the best kitchens I have ever worked in with wonderful kitchen window views. Lingering making dough, dreaming this was my kitchen, was very enjoyable.

Shape into a round, and leave to rise in a clean bowl, covered with plastic wrap, and a tea towel on top and kept warm until doubled in size.

This is the dough now doubled in size and ready to use. If you were not wanting to make pizzas straight away, just punch down the dough and put in the refrigerator until needed. Even in the fridge the dough will slowly rise up.

Preheat the oven (and pizza stone or substitute) as high as it will go. Take a lemon-sized piece of dough and sprinkle the board with polenta or semolina to keep your pizza from sticking to the board and adding extra crunch to your base. Roll it into a 5mm thick round. The aim is to make a very thin pizza base and you get to know what best fits your pizza stone.

As Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from River Cottage explains a good pizza base is hard to accomplish in a domestic oven, "And I won't lie – it can be tricky getting that crisp, slightly blistered crust in a domestic oven. The key is to whack the thing up as high as it will go and give it time to get to temperature. If you have one, put in a pizza stone to heat up too. If you haven't, a large, unglazed quarry tile (terracotta unglazed tile) is a good substitute, or at a pinch use a heavy baking sheet, preheated as hot as it will get."

Julia's oven went really hot which ensured the bread had plenty of bubbles and went really crisp.

Usually with pizza you put the base onto a tray, add the toppings and slip the pizza onto the hot stone just brought out of the oven. The aim is to do this as quickly as possible so as not to allow the stone or tray to cool down too much.

However, this recipe nearly completely cooks the base before adding the curly endive topping. I usually add a slathering of oil and a sprinkle of either fennel seeds or thyme leaves.

The leaves are added to the nearly cooked base.

Then sprinkle with parmesan or place mozzarella slices.  Feta also works well.

You don't have to wait long for this to cook at such a high temperature.  You just want the endive to wilt.

Here it is as the finished item.

Curly endive Cichorium endivia is from the Chicory family and while it is related it's not the same plant as the distinctive blue flowered chicory that you can find growing on roadsides, or the cultivated chicory shoots that are also called endive or Belgium endive or witloof.

Chicory Cichorium intybus is a relation to curly endive but is grown for it's root not the leaves like curly endive.

Curly endive is from the same tribe of plants as dandelion, and their common trait is their bitter tasting leaves.  To reduce some of the bitterness of endive it has traditionally been "blanched" while growing ...meaning covered with a pot or tying up the outer leaves to create pale leaves in the centre.

My attempt at blanching curly endive

When I tried this with my endive, they did look quite hard case with their curly leaves all tied up. The centres did go a pale yellow but it also became a really nice home for every slug and snail in the garden and some of the leaves started to rot.  I'm not sure if the Auckland warmer climate has helped but the leaves don't seem to be that bitter anyway, so next year I won't bother doing the blanching.

The washed leaves from a curly endive that has been "blanched". It shows the contrast between inner and outer leaves.

To counter any bitterness in curly endive leaves I tend to add some sweet winter fruit like mandarins and pears to my endive salads. Shaved bulb fennel is also a perfect salad companion for curly endive.

This endive salad has thinly sliced pear, a mandarin and shaved fennel bulb in a dressing of lemon juice, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. Nuts like walnut or hazelnut would be a good addition.

I am pleased that I got to know Curly Endive and will certainly grow it again next year.

Postscript:

I made Pizza de la endibia a couple of days ago but this time added a taste of sweet with a pear sliced on top of the endive...and it was a winning combination that I would like to pass on to you.

Pizza de la endibia with sliced pears, parmesan and pepper.

Kefir - my new pet

I do have a reason for not posting for a while. I’ve been busy getting to know and experiment with a new food called kefir. I now feel confident after working with it on a daily basis (and even travelling with it) for nearly six months to pass on to you my discoveries about kefir.

You will have to forgive the bland photography in this post but it’s hard to make a white liquid look colourful. Here is my jar of kefir at the start of the fermenting process.

Looking after kefir is a little like having a pet. It can’t be left alone for too long and needs regular feeding. It’s quite easy to become a little obsessed about it.

My kefir story starts in December 2014 when I mentioned to my friend Sue that I wanted to introduce more fermented food into our diet.  We talked about how foods that have undergone a fermenting process will improve gut health… and it’s widely recognised that the gut plays a vital role in general health.  Sue suggested Kefir as a good starting point and next time we met, she gave me some Kefir milk grains.  I gladly accepted these grains knowing absolutely nothing about Kefir, but willing to learn.

Here is kefir after fermentation. It looks just like a pouring yoghurt.

Kefir (pronounced keh-fear) is a yoghurt like fermented milk product which comprises a mix of probiotic bacteria and yeasts.  Unlike yoghurt, kefir has a slight effervescence, which comes from these ‘good guy bugs’ doing fermenting work.  In fact the biggest difference between the taste of natural yoghurt and kefir is the slight yeasty smell and taste. I don’t mind the yeasty flavour at all… because I know that these kefir yeasts are ‘friendly’ and wage war on any harmful yeasts hanging out in my gut.

I can now easily drink kefir straight, but until you get used to the sourness I suggest you add some sweetener like maple syrup or a dash of cordial. It doesn’t take long to just enjoy it straight.

The fundamental difference between yoghurt and kefir is that yoghurt is made up of up of a handful of good bacteria that feed the good bacteria in your digestive tract.  But, they are only transient and their benefits will only last 24 hours.  Kefir has a mix of transient and colonising good bacteria and yeasts (or probiotics) that continue to keep working in your gut fighting bad bacteria (pathogens), especially in the bowel. The longer you ferment kefir the more astringent and thick it becomes and it will have more probiotics present.

This is a blackcurrant, honey and banana oat smoothie using kefir and some rolled oats soaked overnight. I use whatever fruit I have and with the oats you have a breakfast in a drink. It’s also the best way to get my Grandson Beau to drink kefir.

At first I couldn’t easily drink a glass of kefir straight so my first kefir experience was in a kefir smoothie… it was delicious!

Kefir was has been used for well over 2000 years.   Marco Polo wrote about it as being part of the diet of the people in the Caucasus mountain region that separates Europe from Asia. Kefir grains were a safe way of preserving milk before refrigeration.  It preserved milk by the introduction of 30-60 different probiotic bacteria and it was said those who drank it twice a day lived long, disease free lives. You wonder why it has taken so long for the good news about Kefir’s magical health properties to reach beyond Northern Europe, Russia and Eurasia. Apparently Kefir was only introduced to the United States by Russia at the end of the Cold War.

I cover my jar with some cheese cloth and secure it with a rubber band.

Unlike yoghurt you don’t need an even heat for the fermentation process.  Kefir fermentation is done on the bench top out of the sun. Ideally cover it with a cheesecloth to keep out stray insects… rather than cover with a lid as it’s fermenting gases will accumulate. In the heat of summer I was making kefir in less than 24 hours but now in winter it can take two days.  

Kefir is like a sour dough starter or ginger beer bug – once you receive the grains it needs to be fed with fresh milk to survive.

Kefir grains look a bit like rice pudding or cauliflower and the best way to obtain them is from a kefir making friend.  Anyone who is making kefir,  will have an embarrassment of kefir grains after just a couple of weeks of fermenting.  If you don’t know of anyone who can pass them on free then you can find them online in New Zealand at Natural Abundance. Their site has plenty of good information and follow their instructions carefully to activate the grains.

Kefir grains are fascinating. I unfurled one of the grains to discover they stretch out flat. Some grains can get quite large.

The method I describe below is using activated kefir grains that you might receive from a friend already in a jar with some milk. For each daily ferment, I use about 1 Tbsp of grains to about two cups of milk. This is a lower ratio than some others suggest but I try to avoid the fermentation from being too rapid because I can easily get an oversupply of Kefir.

This is the amount of grains I use to about 2 cups of milk.

I use a one litre preserving jar that I fill to just over half way. The good news is you don’t have to be that fussy with measurements when it comes to kefir. As they ferment they increase in volume so it’s good to give kefir a bit of elbow room. I use whole milk as it produces a thicker kefir but any type of milk is fine except for lactose-free milk.  The ideal is organic whole milk and you can use goat or sheep milk as well. The kefir feeds on the lactose in milk.. which is good news for anyone who is lactose sensitive or intolerant, in fact for any of us, as lactose can be difficult to digest.

So, here we go.  This brew has just begun fermenting.

You can see the top of the milk just starting to solidify.

After 12 hours or so, you will begin to see air spaces in the fermenting milk.  This increases until the fermentation is complete, after about 16-24 hours  and looks like the picture below.

There will be separation occuring but not enough for the whey to be separated from the curds as below.

There is nothing wrong if your kefir does have separation like above, it will just be less creamy and taste tart. The tartness also indicates that the kefir has eaten more of the milk sugars, so those with a lactose intolerance wanting to try kefir should wait until the whey separates like this before consuming.

I am using a stainless steel sieve. It’s supposed to be a “no no” to use metal with kefir grains but this rule was made at a time when metals were reactive and there would be a chemical reaction when the two met. Stainless steel is non reactive. I haven’t found my kefir suffering at all with the use of my  sieve.

Now that your kefir has begun to separate, its time to separate the grains from the thickened fermented milk. Tip out the contents of your jar into a sieve over top of a glass bowl and gently use a non metal spatula or spoon to gently separate the liquid from the grains.  What is in the bowl is now processed Kefir and can used right away.

If you want your Kefir with more effervescence and maximum goodness then you can give it a second ferment.  This means just leaving the strained kefir out on the bench top for another 6 to 12 hours.  This second ferment is not necessary – it’s optional.

Donna Schwenk’s Cultured Food Life video is well worth looking at for extra information and other processes using kefir grains.  Donna has quite a few videos on You Tube and if you have food allergies you might like to listen to her story on how her family got rid of allergies through eating fermented or cultured food.

On the left is the kefir cream, centre the whey and right, the kefir grains ready to have more milk added and another fermentation.

Sometimes I want the curds and whey separated so that I can easily drain off the whey and kept in a bottle in the fridge. Whey can have a number of uses in the kitchen and garden…but that’s another story. The remaining solid can then be sieved to remove the grains and what remains is what I call kefir cream – the consistency of sour cream or thick Greek yoghurt. The cream is easier to work with if I wanted to make a kefir dressing.

This dressing is excellent for potato salad. You can use the thinner pouring kefir as well but just add a tsp of tahini and leave to thicken before using.

When you are away from home your kefir is happy to chill for up to two weeks in your fridge.

If you are away for more than one week you should give it plenty of milk to feed on. Kefir slows down in the cold and once you are home just pop it out on the bench and it will start to activate again.

Another magic feature of kefir is that it can improve your baking.  Use kefir where you would use buttermilk in recipes. I used kefir instead of buttermilk in Yotam Ottolenghi’s Skillet Cornbread recipe.

There is a lightness in baking made with kefir so I use it in any recipes that have milk in them. I have tried it with my favourite recipes for scones, oat pancakes and Nan’s pikelets.

Nan’s pickles were lighter in texture using kefir instead of milk. Topped with my St Mary’s Crabapple Jelly.

A delightful advocate of kefir on You Tube is Katrine Rudolph from Denmark. Katrine milks her own Jersey cow and makes her kefir from raw milk.

Kefir once discovered is something many want to share on You Tube videos. I, too have been most enthusiastic about my new pet subject kefir… perhaps telling friends and family more than they really want to know.

For me kefir has been a wonderful start in my journey to discover more about fermented food.

 This posting has been copied from my new site: Jeannieskitchen.me

Preserving a dying art ..Augustines of Central

Preserving a dying art | Otago Daily Times Online News : Otago, South Island, New Zealand & International News

The Scallopini Challenge

It's an Italian.  Around the world it's known as pattypan squash, granny squash, sunburst squash or custard marrow. In New Zealand it's called Scallopini.

This rather perfect looking vegetable in Birthe's basket at Sanctuary Community Gardens caught my eye and my immediate thought was of a flying saucer.

It's really just a fancy shaped zucchini from the summer squash family Cucurbita pepo.  

A stack of brioche tins at Milly's Kitchen shop, Ponsonby.

The nickname Pattypan squash came about because of the scalloped shape that resembles the similar shaped cake or brioche pans.

On a recent visit to our Sanctuary Community Gardens I was handed a cluster of scallopini and a challenge.

Trevor asked if I could come up with a recipe that would showcase the scallopini.

Trevor suggested I get a shot of Beau with the scallopini patch behind him to show how large they grow. Trevor Crosby (left) and Beau right with a scallopini at Sanctuary Community Gardens.

My grandson, Beau, told me "Trevor knows a lot of things".  I have to agree. It's thanks to Trevor's knowledge and caring for the scallopini and the gardens in general that there is such an abundance for us to share.

Scallopini can be used just like courgettes or zucchini;  thin slithers raw in salads, sautéed in garlic and fresh herbs and put together with pasta and parmesan cheese, or as an ingredient in a ratatouille or vegetable stew.

I decided baking them would be the way as their signature scallop edges would be retained.

The dish that was the outcome of the challenge that I have called "Trevor's Spicy Rice Scallopini" with tomato and basil sauce.

I started the challenge by looking through my recipe books... then decided just to make something up with the ingredients I already have in the pantry.

I had brown rice, corn, preserved lemon and a couple of Italian heritage tomatoes from the gardens.

Rice was to be the base for the stuffing so a cup of brown rice was cooked in salted water (it takes ages compared to white rice to cook but you are rewarded with a nuttier flavour and healthy fibre.)

While the rice cooks, saute onion until soft.

Bottom left: fennel seeds that I gathered from the gardens and dried myself, Centre: sage that I also picked and dried but you can use fresh instead, and Right: one of our garlic cloves grown at the Gardens.

For flavourings I used about a teaspoon each of fennel seeds, dried sage and one large garlic clove chopped.

Whenever I can I add turmeric to dishes because it is so good for you and adds colour.

I added these to the softened onion along with 1 tsp of turmeric.  I wanted to use preserved lemon so decided this dish would lean towards the middle east in flavour.

You could use red peppers instead of corn to give colour and something sweet. You can also just use canned corn kernels.

I had one corn cob left and knew this would make my scallopini attractive to Beau who loves corn. I cut the cobs from the uncooked cobs by sliding a knife down where the corn meets the husk. There were quite a few stringy fibres that I plucked out before adding to the spiced onion mix. Instead of corn you could use red peppers and a chilli if you want to add some heat.

Next I thought about adding some nuts.  Almonds would be a delicious addition but on this occasion I  use seeds - 1/4 cup of sunflower seeds in recognition of the great display we have of sunflowers at our gardens.

Sarah who planted all the sunflowers named this particular sunflower "Ernest"..because he stood the tall and proud delaying flowering until the week of the Auckland Heroic Garden tours when our community garden was on show. Ernest has been selected as the seed provider for next year's crop.

When using preserved lemon don't salt your food until you have added the lemon because it's very salty and I found I didn't need to add any extra salt.

I cut up some slices of preserved lemon (rind, flesh and salt altogether).

In keeping with the middle eastern theme I added 1/4 cup of currants to add something sweet.

I mixed the drained cooked brown rice with the spiced onion and corn mix, and had a taste. It was delicious but I felt it just needed one more spice.

Sumac is native to Iran and is a reddish purple. Sumac comes from berries that are dried and is usually sold ground.

Sumac or sumach has a fruity astringent taste that is used in middle eastern cooking especially sprinkled over rice, salads, fish and stews.  A good sprinkling gave the rice the flavour I was looking for.  

Scallopini has a nutty flavoured flesh denser than zucchini and they keep for longer in the refrigerator.

At last the scallopini come onto the scene. They are easy to cut in half and with a spoon just scoop out the seeds to make a little dish for the rice filling. The scallopini I chose were the size of a saucer.  They do grow larger and Trevor says they don't get stringy like marrows even at this large size, but they are at their best when not too large. For me the scallopini the size of a saucer are a good size for stuffing.

The seeds from one packet turned out plants with yellow and creamy coloured fruit. For me I gravitate to the cheery yellow ones. Kings Seeds have a variety called Squash Sunbeam F1 that has good resistance to powdery mildew.

I add some oil and with a brush sealed the scallopini flesh. The cavity is then filled with the mix then add thick cut slices of meaty tomatoes on top, (heritage Italian tomatoes also from the gardens) .

The final touch is a little crumbled feta with another sprinkling of sumac.

I place them in a large oven tray and cover with foil to cook at 180C for at least an hour.

The flesh is nice and juicy but to add more moisture and a luscious red, I made a tomato and basil sauce by melting butter and quickly frying two of those lovely beefsteak tomatoes, chopping in basil towards the end of cooking and seasoning with salt and pepper.

With the amount of rice mix I had I could have stuffed twice as many scallopini than I did. This mix could easily cover 4-6 whole scallopini (up to 12 halves).  It's also good as a rice salad.

Trevor's challenge has been fun and I hope he enjoys the recipe.  I have decided to call the dish Trevor's Spicy Rice Scallopini.

Focusing this week on scallopini has delayed my post about kefir that I have been promising to write about.Kefir can wait but not so an abundance of scallopini - just like courgettes they are only in plenty at this time of the year.  This recipe can be used for any squash, courgette or pumpkin.

Never fear kefir is coming up next.  I have been experimenting with it and have discovered many ways to incorporate it into our diet. There may even have to be a couple of posts dedicated to this gutsy topic.

I have moved my blog to www. Jeannieskitchen.me