Sautéed Belgian Endive with Pancetta & Crème Fraîche

Over a decade ago, I corralled my repertoire of Belgian endive recipes that I had accumulated over the years in a post entitled A Study of Belgian Endive, found here. In it were six recipes featuring the titular ingredient which included: 

• Pear, Endive, Gorgonzola with Port Wine Dressing
  
• Belgian Endive Herb Cheese Canapé
• Watercress, Apple and Endive Salad with Apple Cider Dressing
• Endive and Bacon au Gratin
  
• Grilled Endive with Creamy Tarragon Mustard Dressing
• Prosciutto and Endive Salad with Parmesan Vinaigrette
  

I was content to have discovered no further recipes that interested me using this noble, enigmatic lettuce until now.

Fast forward to the current decade and a little known, fledgling cable channel called Recipe.TV. Now that the Food Channel has bastardized itself to be little more than a game show network if not an outlet for Guy Fieri to critique low-end restaurants (which he pretends to drive to in a restored 1968 Camaro SS convertible), there aren't many shows on television anymore that actually teach you how to cook.

Even the Cooking Channel doesn't really cook anymore.  It's littered with TV hosts who travel from town to town using the same basic Fieri formula for hobnobbing with restaurant chefs in the kitchen, passing inspection on their cuisine and telling the camera how good something tastes while making the ubiquitous yummy sounds and orgasmic facial expressions. Really, is there any worse show than Carnival Eats? 

But Recipe.TV seems to be in its infancy to bring back the classic cooking show.  I infer they are in their infancy because they seem to have very little content, running the same four dozen shows over and over.  Their website is unbelievably clunky and slow, and only lists three of their on-air personalities that don't, in fact, include this one.  

Chef Edward Delling-Williams is a British ex-pat living in France.  He owns and operates a bistro and separate bakery in Paris, called Le Grand Bain and Le Petit Grain respectively, and hosted a cooking show, Paris Bistro Cooking, based on his bistro experience and others like it on the Paris culinary scene. More recently, he moved to a working farm in Normandy which is serving as the backdrop for the show, French Country Cooking.  Chef Edward has a charming on-air personae, and clearly enjoys what he's doing.  He prepared a side dish one night using Belgian endive that caught my attention.

Back to the fledgling network for a moment: I was happy to finally get a glacially-paced download of the recipe, Endive, Lardons & Cream, but noted that it actually did not correctly reproduce the on-air version in which the chef used lemon juice, not vinegar as the printed recipe had listed.  Clearly, Recipe.TV needs help in the continuity department if it can't actually get the on-air recipes correctly reproduced on its website.

A lardon is basically the fattiest part of the pork belly from which American bacon is made, and cut into small rectangular pieces.  Essentially, you can cross-cut slices of thick-cut smoked bacon and you will have some semblance of a French lardon.  I decided to cut some time off of the preparation of this dish and went instead with diced pancetta, which is now routinely available from my grocer (something I noted back in my 2010 posting wasn't the case, in fact, causing me at the time to use bacon - I just didn't know enough then to have called them lardons).  

Chef Edward also used a thick, fresh cream in his dish that I thought most likely would be recreated on this side of the Atlantic with crème fraîche.  I made a couple of other modifications in Chef Edward's recipe, like the addition of lemon zest, and was very happy with my results. 

My Number One Fan immediately insisted I post this recipe.

Ingredients
3 large or 6 small to medium sized whole Belgian endives.
4 oz pancetta cubetti (like, Private Selection or Boar's Head)
8 oz crème fraîche (like, Vermont Creamery)
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp heavy cream
zest of one large lemon
1 tbsp fresh lemon juice

salt & pepper to taste
1/2 oz fresh chives, chopped (do not use dried)

 

The Recipe
Sauté the pancetta in a large skillet over medium high heat. While the pancetta is cooking, wash the endives and trim away any blemishes, then cut in half straight through the stem. Remove the pancetta from the skillet when cooked.

 

Add the additional olive oil if the pancetta has not rendered enough fat and place the endive face down in the hot oil.  Cook for 5-10 minutes until they become caramelized.

 

Turn the endives over and add the heavy cream and crème fraîche to the skillet; turn the heat down to medium.  When the cream begins to simmer, add the lemon zest and lemon juice.  Add a pinch of salt and a good bit of freshly cracked black pepper. Return the pancetta to the skillet, and stir everything well to combine.

 

Reduce the liquid by about half until it coats the back of a spoon.  Add the chives just before removing the skillet from the stove. By the way, the easiest way to chop fresh chives is by snipping them off with a pair of scissors.

This side dish paired beautifully with a pan seared/oven finished rib eye steak, but honestly, is hearty enough to be served as a main course with a side of pasta.