Wild chicory can be found everywhere in the Mediterranean. Its bitterness is an important flavour in the ‘insalata di campo’ that Italians love to eat at this time of year. Cooked chicory tastes best when blanched in plenty of boiling salted water then braised in olive oil with chilli and garlic, often combined with creamy cannellini or broad or fava beans.
The green spear-shaped leaf of the chicory known as cicoria catalogna has a unique bitter flavour, and is used as both a cooked vegetable and as a salad leaf. Grumolo verde is a chicory variety that is grown just for salads, as the leaves are small, round and fleshy, more like radicchio. This smaller plant grows easily in our vegetable plots, and is an interesting salad leaf for the winter. You can pick out the centre spiralled hearts, and they will re-grow.