Capricorn
This serious and ambitious sign is a climber, both socially and economically. But as an earth sign they don’t lose sight of the baser things in life, food that grounds them.
So when eating out, a Capricorn will love the status of a Michellin star restaurant, all small plates hovered over by chefs brandishing tiny tweezers, while longing for more comforting and generous portions of humbler food, such as a large plate of buttery spuds.
Here I’ve done a Capricornian winter recipe of baked chicory hearts with cream and goat’s cheese.
Chicory and goats’ cheese gratin
While we don’t eat much chicory in the UK, in France, ‘endives’ are very popular and found piled up cheaply in the supermarkets.
The bud-shaped vegetable is forced (i.e. grown in the dark) to ensure that the leaves are pale and tender. The flavour is crisp and slightly bitter. (Bitter foods are good for you, although cooking lessens the bitterness.)
If using in salad, I like to pair chicory with blue cheese, walnuts and a Dijon mustard vinaigrette.
The French bake it with béchamel sauce, each shoot wrapped in ham. This is a vegetarian tweak on baked endives.
Tip: You can also use red chicory or endives, sometimes called radicchio. These work just as well.
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 4 or 5 chicory tips, root trimmed and cut in half lengthways
- 100 g butter, unsalted
- 50 g flour
- 1 tbsp mustard
- 250 ml full fat milk
- Salt and pepper
- 220 g goat cheese, roulade-style, 1cm-wide slices
- 50 g parmesan, grated
- handful breadcrumbs
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 180ºC.
- Grease the baking dish with half the butter and lay the chicory halves inside it. Cover the dish with foil, then bake for 20 minutes or until tender.
- In the meantime, make the béchamel. Using a good quality saucepan, melt the rest of the butter on a low heat. Add the flour and, using a wooden spoon, start to stir vigorously. Add the mustard and add the milk gradually, a bit at a time. Keep stirring so that the ‘roux’ (the flour and butter) absorb the liquid. (If there are any lumps, use a whisk to eliminate them). Keep doing this until all the milk is absorbed and you have a thick white sauce. Season to taste.
- Remove the chicory from the oven and remove the foil (but don’t get rid of it). Toss the chicory to make sure they aren’t stuck to the bottom. Line them up and pour the béchamel sauce over the chicory. Add the rounds of goats’ cheese to the top of the dish, spreading them evenly. Add the parmesan and the breadcrumbs. Replace the foil and bake in the oven for 10 minutes.
- Finally, remove the foil and bake or grill the dish for another 10 minutes so that it browns. Serve hot.
