Why it works: Endive and sauce work together. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 129 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Endive Stewed
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Select the best endive and remove any bitter leaves.
Wash the endive thoroughly and blanch it in a large pot of boiling water with a handful of coarse sea salt.
Once cooked, drain the endive on a sieve.
Stew and serve
Stew the endive in strong consommé instead of braising.
Serve as a garnish or with sauce espagnole or béchamel sauce.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Endive + saucetop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together129 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Endive
- Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender when blanched and stewed.
- Strong consommé
- Supplies moisture and savory flavour as the liquid the endive stews in.
- Sauce espagnole or béchamel sauce
- Adds richness and a creamy or savory coating when served alongside the endive.
The step that matters
Removing bitter leaves before blanching. Endive contains bitter compounds concentrated in some leaves. Removing the damaged or most bitter leaves first keeps the finished dish from tasting harshly bitter, since cooking alone does not remove that bitterness.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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