Chicory with ham in the oven

Preheat the oven to 220 °C.

Cook the potatoes in salted water until tender.

Melt a knob of butter in the cooking pot and add water until about 3 cm high. Place the washed chicory in it and season with pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg. Let it cook with the lid on the pot. Poke a fork into the bottom part of the chicory to check if they are done. Then remove them from the pot and let them drain on a sheet of kitchen paper. Squeeze out any excess water if necessary.

Make the cheese sauce: melt the butter in a pan and stir in the flour. When the mixture starts to dry, gradually add half of the milk while stirring. Stir well and then add the other half. Make sure there are no lumps left in the sauce. Season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg and let it cook for about a minute. Then add half of the grated cheese and the Parmesan cheese flakes.

Wrap the heads of chicory one by one in a slice of cooked ham. Place them in a baking dish and pour the cheese sauce over them until they are just covered. Then sprinkle the remaining grated and Parmesan cheese on top.

Bake the dish for 15 minutes in the preheated oven until the chicory has a nice golden brown crust. Meanwhile, drain the potatoes. Finely chop a few sprigs of parsley and sprinkle them over the potatoes.

Did you know? Chicory is a truly Belgian vegetable. It was not only first cultivated in Belgium, but an average of seven kilograms of chicory per person is also eaten annually! This makes us world champions in chicory consumption, but the largest producer of chicory is France. Besides France, Belgium, and the Netherlands, chicory cultivation occurs in very few other countries.