Boiled chicory roots with anchovies is a salad to be eaten at room temperature as a tasty side dish. It is a typical but little known Ligurian recipe from the traditional Christmas menu to accompany the boiled chicken or the roast turkey.
To prepare them you need just a few simple ingredients: Chiavari chicory roots, garlic, anchovies, vinegar, salt and oil. The dish is not only wonderful to eat but also very good for our health, because the roots are cleansing, diuretic and good for the digestion (as are all bitter ingredients, which are increasingly disappearing from our diet… unfortunately!).
These roots (Cicoria intybus L. var. sativus Bischoff) have a shape similar to long carrots and are light in colour and pointed, surmounted by many leaves. Women used to wash and rub them to make them become as white as possible.
When you buy them, make sure they are plump and fresh and that they do not have the barbe (adventitious roots) which are an indicator of poor quality.
Ingredients
Tools
Steps
Clean the chicory roots, scraping them with the blade of a knife (or better still with the potato peeler).
Wash and top and tail them and cut into chunks. If they are very large, remove the woody part.
Boil them in plenty of salted water until they are tender.
Season with extra virgin olive oil, vinegar and slices of garlic.
Variant: for those who struggle to digest garlic, it is possible to simply rub it inside the salad bowl where you will dress the roots.
If using salted anchovies, clean them carefully. For anchovies in oil, drain the oil off.
Divide them into small pieces and add to the other ingredients.
Allow to rest for a few hours so that they absorb the flavours. Serve at room temperature.
Varied doses for servings