Otherwise known as Catalonian (or winter) chicory, puntarelle is made up of a crunchy inner heart encased with wondrously bitter outer leaves. The entire vegetable is used in this dish with the crunchy heart roasted in the oven while the bitter leaves are braised with cannellini beans. Toward the end, both come together in a show-stopping dish that is perfect on its own or ideal as an accompaniment.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 large head of puntarelle (winter chicory)
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
• 1 can of drained organic cannellini beans or butterbeans
• 1 large lemon
• 4 anchovy fillets or 1 – 2 tsp of capers (vegan option)
• 1 tbsp. of nutritional yeast
• Approximately 500ml vegetable stock
• Salt and pepper to taste

METHOD

Pre-heat the oven to 220C while preparing the puntarelle.

To prepare the puntarelle, you will need to separate the crunchy heart of the vegetable from the outer leaves. Set aside the outer leaves in a colander ready to wash and trim. You will be left with the crunchy heart of the vegetable which essentially looks like multiple spears of asparagus all connected to the central stalk.

Pull off all the ‘spears’ and place in a medium sized baking dish. For the leaves, trim and discard the bottom few inches and then chop the leaves up into 10cm long pieces, wash and drain in a colander. We’ll come back to the leaves in a minute.

Drizzle 1 tbsp of the extra virgin olive oil over the puntarelle stalks. Make sure to massage in the oil and season with sea salt, pepper and one clove of garlic crushed and diced. Place in the pre-heated oven to bake for approximately 20-30 minutes.

While the crunchy stalks are baking, let’s get started on braising the leaves and beans into a casserole. We’ll add the baked stalks to this at the end.

In a medium size deep pan, sweat the garlic in 1 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil. Add the washed leaves and sauté until they start to wilt. Reduce the heat while the leaves cook down. You might want to add a little of the stock here to help the process and prevent the leaves from sticking. Add the drained beans, anchovies (or capers) and slowly add the remaining stock to the mix. Allow to simmer.

When the roasted stalks have browned and softened in the oven, usually takes about 30 minutes, remove from the oven and add them to the simmering casserole on the stove top.

Add the juice of the large lemon as well as the nutritional yeast and it’s ready to serve.

Garnish with some homemade ginger and turmeric sauerkraut.

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