A chef friend of mine, who shall remain nameless on this occasion, used to profit from the endive’s unpopularity. When he was especially short of vegetables he would make a small batch of braised endives (by which I mean those elegant, bulbous white torpedoes known as “Witloof” endives in Belgium) and pronounce it his vegetable of the day. Whether the customer ordered the steak or the sardines, an endive in a little porcelain dish was presented alongside. Nine times out of 10, it would come back to the kitchen untouched and it was the work of the moment to reheat and re-sauce the rejected offering and send it out to the next customer. Such scandalous “recycling” would not be condoned today but the trick amused me at the time.

I was musing on this as my daughter – hitherto a unadventurous eater – tucked into what looked like an excellent plate of endives and scallops at Paul Kitching’s splendid restaurant in Leith. I say it “looked” good because it was gone before I was permitted the merest smear with which to perform a professional assessment. A couple of years ago, Daisy would not have contemplated a scallop, let alone an endive. She even managed most of her pigs’ ear salad and expressed a certain curiosity regarding my bone marrow with snails and girolles.

The first time I tasted puntarella, an astringent cousin of the endive, in Rome, my mouth puckered at the first assault: now, whenever I am in that city, I have to have a puntarella salad with the usual anchovy, vinegar and olive oil dressing. Equally, a cooked endive is now a comforting taste, just as it must be Mom’s apple pie to millions of Belgians. The endive trick would never have worked in Brussels.

Rowley Leigh is the chef at Le Café Anglais
rowley.leigh@ft.com
More columns at www.ft.com/leigh

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Roast partridge with endive and hazelnuts

The French partridges are plump, juicy and good eating, just as long as one gives them a little lift in terms of flavourings. This is as good a way as any and especially good if you can find fresh cob nuts instead of hazelnuts. To serve six.

Roast partridge
Ingredients
6 partridges
3 shallots
1 carrot
1 stick of celery
1 glass dry white wine
1 dsp sherry vinegar
1 glass madeira or Oloroso sherry
thyme
½ litre chicken stock
1 tbs hazelnut oil
lemon juice
salt and milled black pepper

Method
● An hour ahead, roast the partridges in a hot oven, basted with a little butter, for 15 minutes and allow to cool a little. Remove the breasts and legs and arrange on a plate skin side up. Chop up the carcases roughly and return them to the tray in which the birds were cooked. Brown these bones for a further 15 minutes in the oven.
● Chop the vegetables into ½ cm dice. Fry them in a little butter in a large saucepan until golden brown. Add the sherry vinegar and allow it to evaporate almost completely. Add the bones from the oven and scrape up their juices with the white wine. Add the madeira or sherry, the thyme and the chicken stock and stew very gently for 30 minutes.
● Strain the partridge stock into another saucepan and reduce to a large cupful, by which time it should have a sauce-like consistency. Whisk in the hazelnut oil vigorously until it is completely amalgamated (a hand-held blender is excellent here, as it will help to thicken the sauce). Season this sauce with a little lemon juice, some salt and milled black pepper.

Endive and hazelnuts
Ingredients
3 endives
50g unsalted butter
salt and pepper
pinch of sugar
juice of half a lemon
2 dsp hazelnuts

Method
● Toast the hazelnuts under a hot grill and then rub them over a sieve to remove their skins. Chop the nuts coarsely.
● Quarter the endives and rinse them briefly in cold water to remove any sand. Heat a large frying pan and add the butter. As soon as this foams, add the endive quarters and colour on each side. Add a pinch of sugar, a good seasoning of salt and pepper and the lemon juice. As soon as the leaves start to wilt, toss in the chopped hazelnuts, mix well and turn out on to a large serving dish.
● Reheat the partridge pieces briefly under a hot grill or in the oven, taking care they do not dry out. Arrange these pieces on the endive quarters and pour the unctuous sauce over the whole. Serve immediately.