Escarole
Gardening Tips: Go Blonde This Summer
I love the way escarole tastes in cool weather, with just enough bitterness to be interesting, but not enough to turn you off. Grown in summer, its bitterness is more pronounced, but if you blanch it you might get away with a warm-season crop as well. In France, in wintertime, the hearts of the plants are covered with white plastic hats, secured to the ground with wires, for the last week or so of growth. The result is heads with gorgeous, tender, sweet, pale centers. Last year I tried this in summer using inverted plastic plant saucers, held in the place with potato-sized rocks. It worked like a charm!
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This ancient family includes popular "continental" greens, most preferring cool weather and evenly moist soil. You may sow in the spring as soon as the soil can be worked, when the soil is about 45F degrees. However, late summer sowing for fall and winter harvest may be more successful. Wild at heart, most Chicories prefer to be direct-sown in moderately fertile soil; too much added fertilizer, especially nitrogen, can cause them to bolt. With all varieties, keep soil lightly moist until seedlings emerge. Chicories have varying degrees of bitter flavor and their dense texture adds desirable dimension to salads.
Average seed life: 2 years
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#2985 Mentoponto Full-hearted Escarole: 60 days
Well-known to Italians as “scarola”, escarole is a
broad open-leafed chicory long popular in ethnic comfort
food. This special Italian variety has a delicious, piquant
flavor and a wonderfully crisp texture. It produces a large
semi-erect head with elongated, wide, wavy green leaves and
a creamy-golden heart. More heat tolerant than lettuce yet
very cold hardy, Mentoponto can be grown year round in many
climates. Harvest young in the summer for the best flavor
but let it mature fully in the fall and winter.
One of our favorite comfort-food soups to make is Chicken
Soup with Escarole and Beans. Dice a large yellow onion, two
celery stalks and two carrots in two tablespoons of extra
virgin olive oil. Add two minced garlic cloves: sauté while
stirring. Add six cups of warm chicken broth. Bring almost
to a boil, then reduce heat to simmer. With your kitchen
scissors, cut fine ribbons of escarole into the soup pot
(eyeball it: two cups or more, it virtually disintegrates
into the soup). Add one cup of prepared white cannellini
beans, one cup of prepared red kidney beans and two cups of
diced cooked chicken. Bring it almost to a boil again, then
reduce heat back to simmer. Add a half cup of orzo and
simmer for about 15 minutes until the orzo plumps up and is
almost tender. Serve piping hot with grated parmesan cheese
and crusty bread.
It makes our
escarole soup even more rich and tempting. Sauté finely chopped onions, celery and garlic until soft amd slightly golden. Add chicken broth, prepared red kidney beans, prepared cannellini beans, orzo pasta and finely scissored shreds of escarole. Let simmer until the escarole and orzo are cooked and soft. Season to taste with salt and pepper. It is a heart warming, buttery winter soup topped to perfection with freshly grated Parmesan and crushed friselles (Italian pepper biscuits.) (OP.)
Packet of 500 Seeds / $3.25
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#2995 Cornetto di Bordeaux Escarole: 75-80 days
New! This French heirloom is a conical escarole with curled wavy leaves that produces voluminous, upright, bright green heads with white ribs. Extremely cold-tolerant for early spring sowing, it is best grown in late summer for fall harvest. (OP.)
Packet of 500 Seeds / $2.95
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