Endive

Black cod, despite its name, is not a true cod. Its other names—sablefish and butterfish—suit it better: its texture is as silky as sable, its flavor as rich as butter. I love the Japanese pairing of black cod and miso, but in this recipe, black cod gets a French treatment, a smothering with hazelnut brown butter. Ask your fishmonger where the black cod is from. It’s overfished in California and Oregon so look for black cod from Alaska, where the commercial fishing is better regulated. Black cod has a single row of bones that is very difficult to remove when the fish is raw. You can ask your fishmonger to remove the bones or cut them out yourself before cooking. Or just cook the fish bones and all; it’s easy to spot them and eat around them.

This dish is the Italian equivalent of the French grand aïoli. In France, a colorful assortment of vegetable crudités is accompanied by a large bowl of garlicky homemade mayonnaise. In Italy, instead of dipping the vegetables into aïoli, they dunk them into a bowl of bagna cauda, a “warm bath” of garlic and anchovy simmering in butter and olive oil. In this dish, I toss my favorite winter vegetables with the bagna cauda and pair them with a meaty Australian bass, barramundi. Feel free to adapt the recipe to your location, season, and cravings. If you’re in the mood for asparagus or potatoes, add them to the mix. And if you can’t find barramundi, this dish is delicious when made with another bass, snapper, or halibut.

A variety of cheeses work in this salad, but I particularly love St. Agur, a triple-crème French cow’s milk blue cheese. Its pungent and intense blue flavor is balanced by an unusually creamy and sensuous texture. When shaved into long thin ribbons, the cheese is elegant on the plate and delicate on the palate. To make thin ribbons, I use an old-fashioned cheese pull, a wide metal spatula-shaped utensil with a slotted blade in the center. Pears and cheese are always happy companions, so if you can’t find St. Agur choose another blue, or seek out a good sheep’s milk cheese, such as a Roncal, Manchego, or pecorino. We’ve had more than one customer order this salad as dessert, so you decide where it falls in the meal.

Certain foods taste better when you eat them with your hands, like barbecued ribs and corn on the cob. This salad is the perfect way to indulge that primal urge. Use the endive leaves as scoops to gather up some olive shards, a fava bean or two, and a slice of lemon. The crisp spears explode with flavor, and before you’ve finished the first your hand will be reaching for another. Hand out forks if you must, and make sure to tell your friends that the Meyer lemon slices are for eating. They’re sweet and delicious, peel and all. Slice the olives thinly, so their intense taste doesn’t overwhelm the other ingredients. As for the dressing, gently stir (don’t whisk) in the cream to incorporate it without whipping it.

My grandmother passed this recipe down to my mom and she then passed it on to me. It’s a casserole of pure comfort. First, bitter endive is simmered until sweet, then wrapped in savory ham and smothered with a creamy nutmeg béchamel. Gruyère tops it off before it’s baked until bubbly and golden.

This super-savory dressing goes with everything from haricots verts to chopped romaine. But I especially love it in this combination. For parties, I toss the dressing with just the snap peas and spoon the mixture into the endive spears to make a passed hors d’oeuvre.

This jewel of a salad is the prettiest way to welcome in the cooler months. We use the firm fuyu persimmons, which have a crunch similar to that of apples. The pomegranate seeds add a gorgeous touch and a resounding sweet and tart pop of flavor.

Back in the day, when there was Sally Wong, when there was yellow pepper, and when there was tuna, David was doing endive salad and roast chicken. Although nonrevolutionary, this salad is always delicious. It’s on the menu often, especially in the winter when the garden is under a snowbank and the Parc Vinet Salad (opposite page) is a distant memory. Use Stilton in this salad; it works much better than other blues.

This is the one stew you can get away with in the summer, yet crave in the winter. Veal chunks from the hind shank is the best meat for this; cheeks or shoulder is another option. All but the rear leg muscle will work. Of course, mashed potatoes or a marrow pilaf (rice baked with bone marrow instead of butter) is the perfect buddy. As a finishing touch, we like to pimp our blanquette de veau with truffles, cock’s combs, foie gras, or small slices of lobster. It lends regality to an otherwise hearty and simple stew.

Belgian endive, toasted walnuts, and Gorgonzola make a satisfying winter salad—and a successful pizza topping. Brian first covers the pizza dough with a layer of caramelized onions, then sprinkles on the braised endive, crunchy nuts, and clumps of creamy Gorgonzola dolce, a young, mild version of the familiar Italian blue cheese. Cut the hot pie into thin wedges for an appetizer, or serve larger wedges with a salad for dinner.

This classic of la cuisine grandmère did not come to Cakebread Cellars via anyone’s French grandmother. We learned it from Rich Collins, who introduced endive to the United States when he began cultivating it commercially in California in the 1980s, as a young man barely out of college. Naturally, he calls his product California endive, not Belgian endive, and he has almost single-handedly built an American audience for this shapely chicory. We have watched Rich’s company, California Vegetable Specialties, grow exponentially, and we use his flawless endives year round in hors d’oeuvres and salads. Make endives au jambon—braised endives wrapped with ham and baked in béchamel sauce—on a blustery winter night, and bring it straight to the table in its baking dish.

The plump and pristine Belgian endive from California Vegetable Specialties (see page 91) always impresses the Workshop chefs, and they come up with some novel uses for it. Chef James Boyce, a 2008 participant, made “choucroute” with the sliced endive, braising it with onion, bacon, and apples as if it were cabbage. He paired it with seared duck breasts, but you could serve it with a pork chop and boiled potatoes instead.

For this salad, Brian likes to mix the moist, orange-fleshed sweet potatoes—such as Garnet or Jewel—with drier, yellow-fleshed varieties. Ask your produce merchant to point you to the right types if you aren’t sure. After roasting and cubing the sweet potatoes, Brian tosses them with a mix of bitter chicories, a nutty sherry vinaigrette, and fine shavings of sheep’s milk cheese—an inspired marriage of contrasting textures and flavors. Serve with pork chops or a pork roast for a winter dinner.

At the winery, we are always looking for enticing finger foods that our guests can enjoy comfortably with a glass of wine in hand. This hors d’oeuvre from Memphis chef Wally Joe, devised at the 2004 Workshop, passes that test. Piped or spooned onto endive leaves, the mousse makes an easily passed hors d’oeuvre. The mousse’s creamy texture and smoky notes find an echo in our Napa Valley Chardonnay, and the apple garnish provides another aromatic link.

A colorful platter of crudités and dip is a sure crowd-pleaser for a party—or simply as a snack. As an alternative to lemon-thyme dip, serve the vegetables with the white-bean dip on page 51.

Roasting the portobello mushrooms deepens their flavor and makes them tender and meaty. To clean them, wipe the caps with a damp paper towel (do not soak).

GOOD TO KNOW Citrus fruits are excellent not just for eating out of hand, but also as substantial components of salads, particularly in the winter months, when other fresh produce can be difficult to come by. Here, orange slices are tossed with arugula and endive, and orange juice brightens the dressing.

I love endive cooked this way. It is so succulent and really does melt in your mouth. Serve it with all kinds of roasted meats and poached or baked fish.