As a person born in the mid-1970s, I lived through the peak of Roquefort endives, which were served bathed in a sauce made from cream, Roquefort or another blue cheese, and topped with chopped walnuts and pepper. That invention -which my mother often prepared for dinner on winter Saturdays, along with a platter of potatoes and roasted artichokes- horrified me because a) until I was 14 years old or so I didn’t know how to appreciate blue cheese and b) it also took me a while to value the bitterness of the endives (I take this opportunity to apologize to my mother for expressing to her as a child and let’s say without many filters how little I liked what for her was a delicacy).
This 2.0 version of that dish is vilely copied from one prepared by Albert Cambra, chef at La Vinoteca de Can Calopa, in a winter salad workshop that we shared last December during the El Prat Poultry Fair. He made it with Blau de Jutglar cheese from the highly recommended artisan cheese factory reixagowhich he simply mashed with a fork and mixed with Rasim Vi Madur wine from l’olivera. It was delicious just the way he did it, but for my version I wanted a creamier sauce that reminded me of the original one, that’s why I chose to use gorgonzola. If you use one with a more powerful flavor, reduce the amount, because it may be too strong a sauce; If what is excessive for you is the wine, lower the quantity and add a little water so that it can emulsify and there is not a lump left.
The light syrup made from candiing the orange peels can be used to sweeten a tea, lemonade, or anything liquid that works well with a light orange flavor. It can also be reduced a little more, mixed with a little of the remaining orange juice squeezed with your hands -and, optionally, a splash of liquor- and make a sponge cake drunk. You can swap out the walnuts for your favorite dried fruit, but now I love the walnut, blue cheese, and endive combo as much as my mom, so I stick with it without thinking.
Difficulty
Getting the orange out of the segments is the most complicated.
Ingredients
For 4 people (as an appetizer or starter)
- 2 endives
- 125g gorgonzola
- Between 75 and 100 ml of sweet wine
- 1 orange
- a handful of walnuts
- 2 tablespoons of sugar or honey
- Salt
- freshly ground pepper
- Extra virgin olive oil
Preparation
- Take four strips of orange peel -without the white part- and make thin strips with them about two centimeters long.
- Bring to a boil in a small saucepan 150 ml of water with the sugar or honey and, when it boils, add the orange peel strips. Let them confit slightly for three or four minutes and remove with a slotted spoon.
- peel the orange liveand cut each wedge into four or five pieces.
- Prepare the sauce by blending the gorgonzola and the sweet wine: start with 75 ml of wine, taste it and adjust to taste, adding more wine if necessary.
- Cut the base of the and remove the outer leaves that are broken. Separate the leaves and distribute them on a platter or several plates. Spread the sauce over the top, then the orange and its candied peel and finish off with the walnuts, a good splash of oil, salt and pepper.
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