Two recipes that taught me to love endives.

    For as far back as I can remember, I've been ambivalent about endives. Chicory, witloof, those little pale green torpedos that come at you under various names. On the one hand, unlike loose floppy lettuce leaves, they don't need much hands-on work, if any. On the other, they can be unappealingly bitter.
    The most I can say on their behalf is that they can survive in the fridge, unloved and unused, for a long time before turning slimy. The other thing is that, this time of year, they're cheap. And my OH is a huge fan of them.
     Endives do occasionally find their way into a salad but mostly all I've done is wrap them in ham. bathe them in a mustard-zapped cheese sauce, and top the dish with grated cheese--usually Cantal--before bunging it in the oven.
     Then, about a week ago, one of the Sunday papers published a piece by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall on how to use up your Christmas leftovers--and he wasn't talking about turkey. What appealed to me was a pasta dish. Any dish I can make from memory after a trial run is a keeper--and this one definitely is.

    So here you go:

    Endive Recipe Number One:

    For two people, you need two endives plus about 50 grams of pitted black olives. Chop both of these roughly.
    Once you've put your pasta into merrily boiling water, heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, and throw in a finely chopped clove of garlic. Give it a couple of minutes, then add the endives and olives. Stir it around until the endives have wilted but still have some crunch. Mix in two or three tablespoons of crème fraîche (sour cream would do, I reckon, or even ordinary whipping cream, just something naughty).
   Toss pasta with sauce, strew with plenty of grated Parmesan. I know this sounds easy but it's honestly  far better than the sum of its parts.

   Endive Recipe Number Two

   Next up, a terrific salad from Thomasina Miers. This looked so scrumptious when I watched her make it on Food Network UK, that I tried it a few days later. The original calls for large, costly scallops. I've since tried it with prawns and it works. I think monkfish would be fine too, and probably skate, each cut into scallop-sized chunks. I've even made it without fish and it's still good (if you take this route, halve the marinade quantities).

 
      Here's my version of her recipe. This makes a lunch or light supper for two, though you might want to add a baguette. 

Marinade/dressing
       1 tsp cumin seeds
       1 tsp coriander seeds
       1/4 tsp chili flakes
       1 large clove of garlic
       1/4 tsp salt
       2 Tbsp or more olive oil

       A dozen or more large prawns (uncooked and shelled) or 6 to 8 large scallops (or monkfish or even squid, I'm still experimenting)
       2 heads of endive
       2 avocados, peeled and cut into chunks (sprinkle with lemon juice to stop them going brown if      
          you're not going to use them immediately)
       1 large orange
       Fresh coriander/cilantro leaves to taste
   
In a small frying pan, dry roast the cumin, coriander and chili flakes till fragrant. Mash the garlic clove in a mortar, and pound in the roasted spices. Add 2 tsp of the olive oil, and the salt, and keep pounding till you have a thick, smooth-ish paste.

Toss the prawns in half this marinade and leave them for a couple of hours if you can. If you can't, let them sit while you get the rest of the ingredients ready.

Cut the skin off the orange, and remove the flesh in tidy sections. Squeeze the remains of the orange into a bowl. Whisk in 1 Tbsp olive oil, and the other half of the marinade.

Break the endives into separate leaves, add the orange, toss with the dressing, and divide into two bowls.

Heat a frying pan, and add what's left of the olive oil. Stir fry the prawns just until pink. Divide them between the salads, along with the avocado chunks. Sprinkle with coriander leaves.

This really hits the spot: the sweet spiciness of the prawns, the fleshy avocado, crunchy endive, and tangy orange. Try to get some of each in each bite.  Get all your prep work done beforehand and it comes together in minutes.

3-minute meals. 1) Choir night pasta.

   Sometime around when the church bells ring--somewhat tinnily--the angelus, we open a bottle of wine and enjoy an apero. Then I get on with making supper. Normally, it's a leisurely process and we usually end up eating around 8:30 p.m.
    But not on Wednesday nights between now and next summer. Wednesday evenings means choir practice. Wednesday evenings means that, by 8 p.m., we need to be in the Salle des Tilleuls (one of Léran's communal halls), music in hand, voices primed, ready to sing.
   On Wednesdays, we eat at 7:15 p.m.
   For most of us, pasta is the default meal when we're in a rush, but it does take at least ten minutes to bring your penne from hard to al dente. And that's after the water comes to a boil.
   My life changed... Hang on a minute, I think we need capital letters here... My Life Changed When I Discovered Pasta made in Treziers.
   Treziers is a small village of about 100 inhabitants some 9 km from here, situated on a crest with stunning views of the Pyrenees. It has no boulangerie but it does have a square with a fountain at its centre, and a mechanic who mends Mercedes.
    And it also has someone who makes organic pasta.
  

   I've been buying this since I first saw it in SuperU a few years ago. It costs about two euros for 500 grams. Going off on a tangent for a moment, supermarkets in France are invariably staunch supporters of local producers. That's why you find charcuterie made near Lavelanet, chive and nettle vinegars, and confit of onions from close to Mirepoix, and so on.
   Lately my favourite pasta has been sharing shelf-space with other locals but, for a long time, it had an entire end-aisle display in the big SuperU in Mirepoix. I can't even begin to imagine a North American or UK supermarket doing that. Normally this prime location where you're forced to slow down your cart as you round the end of the aisle is sold at a premium. Hence, megaliths of junk food from multinational companies are what you usually find there.
    Patricia Corsini makes spirals, tagliatelle and a couple of other varieties. All of her pasta is organic--that little green and white "AB" sign means "agriculture biologique"--and everything else you want to know is on the packet. That includes the cooking time (which I'm charmed to see someone has changed by hand from "3 mn." to "2-3 mn").

     Ignore these instructions at your peril. It'll turn into a big doughy blob and serve you right. This pasta really does cook that quickly so you have to hover over the pan, tongs in hand, fishing out a tagliatelle or a spiral as you come to the end of the cooking time.
     Meanwhile you heat up some bottled pesto, or frozen if you had the foresight to stash it away this summer. Chez nous, this week's sauce was half a jar of bought red pesto mixed with the remains of the tetrapack of tomato-and-oregano pizza sauce we used the other evening.
     Other times, I chop fresh tomatoes, tear up a fresh mozzarella, slurp olive oil over it and add lots of torn basil leaves.
     Lemon rind, a bit of lemon juice, olive oil and grated Parmesan is another almost-instant sauce.
Drain the pasta, toss with your sauce of choice and, in all cases, strew on plenty of coarsely chopped parsley to make the plate look pretty.
    Maybe not three minutes from start to finish but the fastest way I know to get supper on the table.
    

Choir Practice Pasta

Every Wednesday at 8 p.m., sopranos, altos, tenors and basses meet up for an hour and a half. Do the math and you realize this means an early supper. In this house, it's usually last-minute too. Sometimes we hastily put together bread, cheese and a tomato. Once in a rare while, I'm organized enough to bake a quiche or tarte in the afternoon. 

    This dish is a godsend because (as I proved last night) I can transform myself from garden slot to choral goddess and have supper on the table in a bit over half an hour. 

    All you need is spaghetti, or whatever ever smallish or narrowish pasta you have, and the classic salad called insalata Caprese--salad Capri-style. This Italian flag-coloured combination of ripe tomatoes, fresh basil and fresh mozzarella is ridiculously easy to make--and, I've found, doubles as a lovely, light and summery sauce for pasta. 

   Instead of slicing the tomatoes and fresh cheese, cut them in small cubes, then throw in lots of torn basil and a slosh of olive oil. Maybe a grind or three of black pepper? I assemble the lot in a big serving bowl to cut down on dishes. You can do all this while the pasta is cooking. Then, simply drain the pasta and toss it with the tomato-etc. mix. It's also tasty at room temperature and leftovers work as salad the next day.

   Just remember to put a big pot of water on to boil before you climb in the shower.

Greens + Purples = Spring

This morning, Mirepoix market was bustling with people--and carpeted with vegetable plants. Herbs too. Basil, chives, savory, even occasionally coriander, parsley both curly and flat-leaved, it was all there. Here's a producer who specializes in tomato plants. From her and others, I've so far collected four varieties including Green Zebra and a black-red variety whose name I've forgotten. Meanwhile, growing in a small pot on the patio, much to my delight, are tiny plants that have sprouted from seeds that I saved from last summer. Not sure what kind that are but I know I salvaged them from an heirloom tomato so you can't fault their family background. 

   The lady in red is buying asparagus and baby purply-green artichokes. Right now, stalls are heaped 40 cm high with white and green asparagus. You can buy thin, medium or thick or odds and ends to make soup or risotto with. If you love to cook, this is an inspiring time of year.

   We came home laden and I've just now taken a break from preparing the veggies for pasta primavera, a dish that'll use some of the produce we bought. Skinny purply-tipped asparagus, beautiful, beautiful young sweet purple-striped garlic, parsley...The most labour-intensive chore is shelling the broad beans. After you've podded them, you toss them in a pot of boiling water f0r 30 seconds, then pop each one out of its skin.