Belgian Endive & Bacon au Gratin
A beautiful side dish or it can be served as a first course hot salad; baked Belgian Endive with bacon lardons in a Morney Sauce, finished with seasoned bread crumbs and Parmesan Cheese.
When I first made this dish, it was a huge disappointment. I used the basis of a similar recipe on the Epicurious website, a reprint from an October 2000 recipe that originally appeared in Bon Appétit magazine, called Baked Endive with Pancetta and Parmesan Cheese. That recipe called for you to parboil the endive before baking it, which was a real culinary faux pas on their part. Endive is delicate and just doesn't need parboiling before baking. Doing so caused the dish to become watery and the Endive limp. I instinctively knew I was in trouble with this recipe when the title gives "Parmesan" cheese as a key ingredient, when in fact, the recipe called for three times the amount of Gruyère cheese. This dish, perhaps more than any other, reaffirmed my decision to never post a recipe that I had not personally made and liked, even if it meant tweaking the recipe before publishing it.
Needless to say, I re-tooled this dish, omitted the par-boiling step, and decided to go with bacon lardons instead of pancetta. This is the final iteration of the recipe which works very well along side a char-grilled steak.
A Study of Belgian Endive - Belgian Endive & Bacon au Gratin
Ingredients
- 8 heads Belgian Endive
- 2-3 tbsp lemon juice
- 1/2 lb thick cut bacon
- 3 tbsp butter
- 3 tbsp all purpose flour
- 2 1/2 cups whole milk
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 cup Gruyère cheese, grated
- 1/3 cup seasoned breadcrumbs (like, Progresso)
- 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
- 1/8 tsp sea salt, if needed
- 7-8 grinds freshly cracked black pepper
- non-stick cooking spray (like, Butter Flavor Pam)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Spray an 8" x 8" baking dish with non-stick cooking spray.
- Cut the thick sliced bacon perpendicularly into lardons and sauté in a skillet over medium heat until crisp, about 6-8 minutes. Drain well on paper towels until ready to use in the recipe.
- Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the flour and whisk for two minutes until a roux has formed.
- Gradually whisk in the milk. The, Bring the milk mixture to a soft boil, whisking until the sauce is smooth.
- Add the nutmeg and reduce heat to medium and simmer until sauce thickens, stirring often, 5-10 minutes. This is now a Béchamel Sauce.
- Mix in the Gruyère cheese, a little at a time while whisking until thew cheese has melted and is incorporated into the sauce until it is thick and creamy. This is now officially a Mornay Sauce.
- Add the bacon and pepper. Test for salt. The bacon may add enough salt to the dish.
- Keep the sauce warm on low heat until ready to use in the recipe.
- Core the endive and remove the leaves. Toss them in the lemon juice to preserve their color.
- Pour 1/3 of the sauce into the prepared baking dish. Arrange Endive atop sauce. Spoon remaining sauce over. Sprinkle with the breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese.
- Bake until Endive is tender and the dish is brown and bubbly, about 25 minutes.