Just back from Belgium where I fell in love with braised endive!

[CTyankee]

Anybody make this dish? Pls. share your recipe!

I got one recipe online that is basically butter, sea salt and lemon juice. The pic on the recipe looks exactly like what I ate in Brussels.

[Warpy]

1. You can also do a gratin

and the addition of a cream sauce, brown and bubbly under your broiler, is pure heaven.

Endive is also pretty easy to find. My closest (and very small) supermarket here in NM usually carries it. I do have to tell the cashier what the hell it is when I get to the counter (I'm their weird vegetable lady), but by golly, it's there.

I think most other people around here use it in salads for fancy dinner parties and then wonder why most of it is left on the plate. It's really better cooked, folks.

[CTyankee]

2. The way it was served in Brussels was at the bottom of the dish in which it was

probably cooked (oval), all browned up nicely and tasting of butter...and Belgian butter is out of this world!

They also serve it in salads but as you observed, it really is bitter by itself and not very good.

The other dish I loved was Waterzooi, a kind of chicken stew only in a lighter cream sauce and with carrots. It was delightful.

Shrimp croquettes was also wonderful, with a heavier creamy sauce encased in a perfectly cooked croquette crumb.

I was disappointed in the traditional moules recipe, with onion, celery and parsley. It was better with a vin blanc sauce. Frites were good (not spectacular) and tasted very nice with mayonnaise.

I didn't try the waffles because I don't much care for them. The Belgians (and tourists) in Brussels eat them soaked with chocolate syrup on the street, holding them in paper wrap. I've never seen so many people eating in the street as they did in Brussels! It was incredible...

[Warpy]

12. They've legislated street food out of existence here in most of the US

by forcing upgrades to home kitchens that small food producers just can't afford to do. That leaves restaurants with kitchens built for the purpose and it sucks.

Even at that, there are occasionally people selling tamales door to door in my neighborhood around Xmas. They're hotter than hell and much better than anything you'd find in a store or restaurant.

[CTyankee]

13. We have food trucks here in New Haven, esp. around Yale New Haven Hospital.

You can still take your food onto the New Haven Green and sit on a park bench and eat. There are plenty of trash barrels for your trash, too. There is always a hot dog truck on one of the corners of the Green, ever since I moved here a least over 20 years ago...

[Warpy]

15. Roach coaches work out of certified kitchens

and aren't street food. Street food is the family recipe, often an ethnic one, that nobody else makes. Street food is grandma food. At its best, it's the best food you'll ever eat, and if they want to stay in business, it's at its best.

They hadn't quite managed to kill it in Boston. There were some Filipino people selling lumpias that I'd look for whenever there was any sort of public event. Those things were fantastic.

You couldn't get them anywhere else.

[CTyankee]

16. Not sure about your characterization of our food trucks. Some probably are but I guess I had

lumped in the food carts when I used that term. Or at least there used to be those carts downtown. Will have to check that out...

[elleng]

3. SO SORRY I missed following you on your trip, yank!

Politics + computer matters keeping me from doing my duties!

Will check out the recipe.

Daughter+ in Ireland now; me, P.G. County, Maryland!

[CTyankee]

5. It was good except that I kinda threw out my back struggling uphill on cobblestones

and uneven brick streets and then aggravated it by spending 3 hours mostly on my feet in the Musee des Beaux Arts in Brussels.

But the food was superb.

[elleng]

6. SORRY about injury.

I recall thnking/concluding, at some point, that Belgian food among the BEST! Have any mussels? Chocolate?

[CTyankee]

8. The traditional moules recipe was a bit of a disappointment. They were steamed with

just onion, celery and parsley and came out a bit dry. I liked it better with vin blanc sauce.

I came back with as much chocolate from Mary, their premier chocolatier, as I could afford. Fabulous!

[elleng]

10. Glad you brought chocolate back.

I discovered cote d'or a few years ago.

BEST moules in DC XXX years ago, @ Restaurant Les Halles (since closed down,) w red sauce, favorite of me and my Dad. Also great steak frites there. NOW I'm hungry!!!

[cbayer]

4. Sounds like a great trip!

I have done braised endive and used this recipe. It's a gratin, but you could stop the process just after the roasting if you like them plain. I also like the leaves raw with a schmear of blue cheese and a sprinkling of toasted walnuts. Trader Joe's almost always has them, btw.

8 Belgian endives (about 2 pounds), trimmed, leaving the root ends intact, and halved lengthwise
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into bits
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 cup chicken broth
2/3 cup finely grated Gruyère
1 1/3 cups dry bread crumbs
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preparation

In a heavy kettle combine the endives, cut sides down, in two layers, the lemon juice, the butter, the salt, the sugar, and the broth, cover the mixture with a buttered round of wax paper and the lid, and bring the liquid to a boil. Simmer the mixture, covered, for 20 to 30 minutes, or until the endives are very tender, and transfer them with a slotted spoon, cut sides down, to a buttered gratin dish just large enough to hold them in one layer. In a small bowl stir together the Gruyère and the bread crumbs, sprinkle the mixture evenly over the endives, and broil the gratin under a preheated broiler about 4 inches from the heat for 3 to 4 minutes, or until the topping is golden and the cheese is melted.


Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Braised-Belgian-Endive-Gratin-13201#ixzz2ALOof1OO

[CTyankee]

7. Sounds good. But what I had was not as complicated. I do like your recipe but I wonder

if the sugar doesn't get the endive over-browned.

[cbayer]

9. It tends to caramelize it a little. I am thinking for what you want, the simpler the better.

Did you have any french fries with mayo on the street?

[CTyankee]

11. I did have the frites with mayo. They were actually very good that way!

As for eating on the street, no, I did not! But everybody else does! Not frites as much as those damn waffles with chocolate sauce smeared on them. Ugh! I've never seen that before on European city streets...

[sinkingfeeling]

14. It is marvelous! However, around here I get to pay like $8.99 a pound for Belgium endive.