Currabinny Cooks: Sweet and bitter salads that bite back

"We love combining the bitter flavours and crisp textures of bitter leaves with sweet things like fruit and honey."

Pink Radicchio Salad with Pickled Grapes, Parmesan & Capers

Give people the option of something bitter to eat and it probably won’t get the warmest of receptions. Like with any flavour, it is how you use this bitterness, what you pair with it and how you prepare it. The particularly cautious reaction to bitter foods has something to do with avoiding poisonous plants in the wild, a trait we share with most other plant-eating mammals. As we evolved, humans have since discovered that many bitter-tasting plants are in fact delicious and very good for you.

The bitter leaves we are referring to here are the wonderfully diverse specimens of chicory or endive. There are many different varieties and they are becoming more and more common here in Ireland in farmers markets and even good supermarkets. The most common are the Belgian ‘witloof’ endive which is a bullet of tightly packed creamy yellow or pink-tinged leaves.