{"id":163,"date":"2014-12-05T16:22:16","date_gmt":"2014-12-05T16:22:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dannyblyth.co.uk\/?p=163"},"modified":"2014-12-05T16:58:25","modified_gmt":"2014-12-05T16:58:25","slug":"a-nice-bitter-chicory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dannyblyth.co.uk\/?p=163","title":{"rendered":"A Nice Bitter Chicory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #008000;\">Chicory<\/span> is pleasantly (and unusually) bitter in flavour.\u00a0 According to Traditional Chinese Medicine this <span style=\"color: #008000;\">bitter cooling nature<\/span> both fortifies the Heart Qi and Blood, and helps to clear Damp-Heat from the Liver, perhaps making it the perfect vegetable for countering post-Christmas blues and overindulgence.\u00a0 High in <span style=\"color: #008000;\">folate<\/span>, and several vitamins, its use as a Blood tonic is well deserved.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/q29Lm1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8668\/15765589000_ddca7db971_z.jpg\" alt=\"photo 1\" width=\"640\" height=\"358\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><!--more-->It comes in 3 main varieties \u2013 <span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">\u201cRadicchio<\/span>\u201d type red and variegated varieties (great for adding colour), the confusingly named \u201cBelgian Endive\u201d or \u201cChicons\u201d (small, pale and mild \u201cforced\u201d varieties), and the <span style=\"color: #008000;\">\u201cSugarloaf\u201d<\/span> types (resembling a pale\/tight lettuce, but with much stronger flavour). The root is often found in coffee substitutes, and its high inulin content perhaps explains why it is so good for constipation and gut motility (and intestinal parasites, so farmers tell us!)<\/p>\n<p>Try making a <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Sugarloaf Chicory Soup<\/span>:<\/p>\n<p>Dice the whole sugarloaf chicory and sweat it in a large knob of butter. Add a finely diced potato and 3 cups of mild stock, and boil for 10-15 minutes until the potato is cooked. Blend, and season with salt and lots of black pepper. You can serve it with cream, fresh parsley, or garlic croutons if you want to impress your guests, but it doesn\u2019t really need it \u2013 it is wonderfully creamy and flavoursome all on its own.\u00a0 <span style=\"color: #008000;\">Mmmmmm<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/qiGDac\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/farm9.staticflickr.com\/8616\/15952872345_b8fcace39a_z.jpg\" alt=\"photo 2\" width=\"640\" height=\"493\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chicory is pleasantly (and unusually) bitter in flavour.\u00a0 According to Traditional Chinese Medicine this bitter cooling nature both fortifies the Heart Qi and Blood, and helps to clear Damp-Heat from the Liver, perhaps making it the perfect vegetable for countering post-Christmas blues and overindulgence.\u00a0 High in folate, and several vitamins, its use as a Blood [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[15,14,1],"tags":[39,40,23,34,38],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dannyblyth.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dannyblyth.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dannyblyth.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dannyblyth.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dannyblyth.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=163"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dannyblyth.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":167,"href":"https:\/\/dannyblyth.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163\/revisions\/167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dannyblyth.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dannyblyth.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dannyblyth.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}