Catalonian chicory with potatoes and two vegetable side dishes

Catalonian chicory with potatoes, roasted tuberous vegetables, and onion sauce with adzuki beans

With its saw-toothed leaves, chicory may look like a dandelion, but it is actually more closely related to radicchio! There are many varieties that have been famous throughout the years; perhaps the best-known varieties had red leaves and were grown from the 15th century onward in north-east Italy. If we feel like trusting Wikipedia, the most famous of these red varieties is from Treviso (radicchio rosso di Treviso), near Venice. Different from these varieties, we also have white varieties or Belgian chicory, otherwise known as witloof, which means “white leaf” in Dutch. The chicory used in today’s lunch is also different; though the name suggests Catalonia, this variety is most popular in Italy and is actually almost unknown in Catalonia. Of all types of chicory, this one is the most bitter.

Naming here can be a bit tricky, as the Catalonian chicory may just be known as chicory, a broad term for a range of plants, for example, the one whose roots are used to make coffee substitutes. These are really the same plant, all being Cichorium intybus in Latin, meaning that all types (including Catalonian) are just varieties of the same species. This plant grows across much of Europe and beyond as a cultivated plant and as a weed in fields and wild areas. 

Since the Catalonian chicory has harder and more bitter leaves than other varieties, it is especially suited for cooking. Today, however, we did not cook it but mixed it in with hot, boiled potatoes.


Recipe, preparation, and price

Quantity

(g or ml)

Price for

4 people (EUR)

Main dish

Onion

400

0,45

Beans

280

1,26

Olive oil

15

0,09

Salt

5

0,00

Beets

500

0,50

Celery tubers

500

0,75

Salad

Catalonian chicory

550

0,93

Potato

300

0,30

Pumpkin seeds oil

20

0,24

Vinegar

10

0,04

Salt

5

0,00

Peppers

3

0,19

Together

4,74

 

For today’s lunch, it was hard to point out one dish as the main course. For our onion sauce, we cooked up onion in olive oil after cutting it into thick rings. When golden yellow, we added adzuki beans, which we had previously soaked for 2 hours and boiled in water for half an hour. These beans are slightly smaller than many beans you are likely accustomed to. We then separately cooked up sliced beet and celery tubers in a bit of oil; we cooked this for a few minutes and then covered it to help it cook more. This helped us soften them up a bit more quickly. 

For our salad, we cooked potatoes, peeled them, cut them into slices, and added our sliced Catalonian chicory while the potatoes were still hot. When everything had cooled down, we added balsamic vinegar and pumpkin seed oil.

All three dishes (potato with chicory, onion and bean sauce, and roasted veggies) were served together.

The price of our lunch for 4 came to 4.74€, so a bit more than one euro per person. The most expensive ingredient today was the adzuki beans, which could easily be replaced with another sort of bean, which could save as much as 30% of this cost. The next most expensive ingredient was the Catalonian chicory, though even this was not too expensive, coming in at 2€ per kg.


Nutritional value

 

With lunch

consumed quantity

% From

daily needs

Energy

514,9

kcal

25,7

Proteins

21,8

g

39

Total fats

10,2

g

23,1

Carbohydrates

89,5

g

Starch

11,6

g

Sugar

16,3

g

Fibers

23,4

g

93,7

Calcium (Ca)

290,3

mg

29

Iron (Fe)

6,9

mg

68,9

Magnesium (Mg)

201,5

mg

50,4

Phosphorus (P)

484,7

mg

69,2

Potassium (K)

2661,3

mg

133,1

Sodium (Na)

1241,1

mg

225,7

Zinc (Zn)

5,1

mg

51,1

Copper (Cu)

1,4

mg

160

Manganese (Mn)

2,7

mg

116,8

Selenium (Se)

4,7

µg

9,4

Vitamin A

424,2

µg

42,4

Vitamin E

7,1

mg

47,1

Vitamin D

0,0

µg

0

Vitamin C

65,2

mg

65,2

Thiamin (B1)

0,6

mg

44,1

Riboflavin (B2)

0,5

mg

31

Niacin (B3)

4,3

mg

29,4

Pantothenic acid (B5)

3,5

mg

58

Vitamin B6

0,9

mg

60,7

Folic acid (B9)

799,0

µg

199,8

Vitamin B12

0,0

µg

0

Vitamin K

451,4

µg

644,8

 

With today’s lunch, we got 25% of our daily caloric needs while also meeting this same benchmark for all other nutrients except selenium, vitamin D, and vitamin B12. We managed to get 40% of our daily protein requirements, once again proving that a vegan diet can be rich in protein. The beans were the main source, followed by the beets, Catalonian chicory, potatoes, and onions. Calcium is also often thought to be lacking in vegan foods, but today’s meal gave us 30% of our daily requirement for this mineral, mainly coming from the chicory, celery, beans, beet, and onions.

If you have questions about today’s lunch (or ideas for future lunches) then feel free to write to us at info@hungry-pumpkin.com and we will get back to you!

Have a great weekend!

-The Hungry Pumpkin Team

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