French Fridays with Dorie: Caramelized endives and apples with raisins and walnuts

This week’s French Fridays with Dorie (Endives, apples and grapes, p 338) was the type of simple dish that makes you wonder “Why didn’t I think of that?” Caramelised endives and apples with grapes sounds a little odd but it really works – the sweet of the apples against the bitter endives is a great combination. I didn’t have grapes on hand when I felt like making this so I figured I might try raisins (I soaked them in boiling water for about 10 minutes to soften them up) and I added a few walnuts for some extra texture. I also used thyme as opposed to the rosemary Dorie calls for and it worked well, thyme is more subtle than rosemary and it was great for this dish’s delicate flavours.

I actually made this twice, both times a small pan just for myself as Neil either wasn’t around of hungrier than this meal would account for. The first time I used larger slices of apple as Dorie recommends but some of them burned before they even got a little soft all over (even though I had the pan on very low) and he endives were overcooked and a little mushy.  The second time around, I used smaller apple pieces and it worked much better – everything was ready at the same time.  I liked the crunch that the walnuts brought so when I plated this, I added some fresh apple slices too. What a delightful fall plate!

French Fridays with Dorie participants do not publish the recipes on our blogs (though this week you can find the recipe online here), rather, we prefer if you purchase Around My French Table for yourselves (trust me, you definitely want this book!) which you can do here on Amazon or Amazon Canada. Or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository. Go on, treat yourself – join us! Honestly, the recipes that I didn’t like I can count on one hand. Really!

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52 thoughts on “French Fridays with Dorie: Caramelized endives and apples with raisins and walnuts”

  1. I think so you did a awesome job here. I would have the same troubel with the burning, they r quite fragile. My mum would make this dish from our own home grown grapes. At that time we had no dark grapes but only the green/yellow ones. I am curious now what it must taste like with the darker grapes. thanks for sharing and I wish u a wonderful weekend!

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  2. Great idea to add walnuts. I have a favorite endive salad recipe which has blue cheese and walnuts in it and I was wondering how this dish would hold up with those additions. Nice to know that walnuts work. Hmm, blue cheese…

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  3. Your combination looks lovely as well…we, too, really enjoyed this recipe and I can imagine using it several times over the fall and winter…your combination looks worthy of a go for sure.

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  4. Ooh, I love braised endive and the apples and raisins sound like a delightful counterpoint. Your pictures are gorgeous, Mardi! Those food photography workshops are paying off (not that your photos weren’t stunning before 🙂

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  5. Look at you Miss Smartipants using raisins and walnuts! Of course that would be fantastic! I will steal that idea next time. (OH, and I see you used the pan approach too!)

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  6. Looks great, Mardi! I love that you added walnuts. I can imagine how well that worked. You must try this with the grapes some time. Though I’m sure the raisins were similar, the grapes were my favorite part of this. Very unusual.

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  7. I just caramelized endive for a salad last week, and it was SO delish! Too bad the pictures of the salad came out horribly, so I’ll have to wait till next time I make it to blog about it 🙂 I have Dorie’s book, so I should totally make this! I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to make anything with endive, considering my love of all things Belgian.

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