Each summer we visit my husband’s family in Gloucester, Massachusetts.  I always come home with ideas for recipes, like steaming clams in beer, or adding lemon aioli to lobster rolls.

We try to make it to sea shanty night at the Dog Bar each trip, and we head to Short & Main afterwards.  It’s a simple menu:  oysters, salad, pizza.  A few years ago I had a salad of radicchio unlike any I had tried before. Radicchio is that red and white striped lettuce you find in a salad mix, just a few stray leaves to add color.  On the rare instance you find an all-radicchio salad, it’s mixed with fruit and soft cheese in an effort to temper the bitterness.  It doesn’t work.  Short & Main paired it with strong, salty flavors like parmesan and anchovies.  It was assertive and addictive, and it brought out the best in the radicchio.

I had to make that salad when I got home.  I planted radicchio in my garden that year, and every year since.  It grows very well here.  I was so excited to pluck the first head the other day.  I have a dozen more to go.

I think they’re all going to end up this way.

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Radicchio Caesar Salad

Ingredients:

• 2 small or 1 large head of radicchio, thinly sliced
• 2 sliced hard-boiled eggs*
• 2 cups French bread cubes
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
• grated parmesan and anchovy fillets, for serving

For the dressing:

• 2 anchovy fillets
• 1 garlic clove
• 2 teaspoons dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon worcestershire
• ¼ cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon grated parmesan
• black pepper

Directions:

Thinly slice the radicchio, add it to a salad bowl and set it aside.

Heat the butter in a skillet over low heat.  Add the garlic and bread cubes.  Sauté them over low heat, stirring often, until the bread and garlic are lightly golden and toasted.  Transfer them to a dish to cool.

Make the dressing by chopping the anchovies and garlic and then mashing them together into a paste.  Add them to a jar or bowl and add the lemon juice, mustard, and worcestershire.  Slowly whisk in the olive oil.  Stir in the parmesan and add a bit of black pepper, to taste.

Toss the radicchio with the dressing, eggs, and croutons.  Garnish each serving with shaved parmesan and an extra anchovy fillet, if you like.

*For perfect hard-boiled eggs:  Add eggs to a pot big enough to fit the eggs in one snug layer in the bottom.  Fill with cold water, just enough to cover the eggs.  Bring to a boil.  Cover. Turn off the heat.  After 10 minutes, remove the eggs and rinse with cold water.