Drinks advice · Beer and food

Baked chicory with Wilderen Tripel Kanunnik

Baked chicory with ham and cheese, under a thick cheese sauce with a breadcrumb crust. A tripel has enough weight and enough carbonation to hold its own next to that plate.

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Bottle of Wilderen Tripel Kanunnik, beer

From the shelf

The bottle

Wilderen Tripel Kanunnik is a Belgian tripel from the Wilderen brewery and has 8.2 percent by volume. A tripel is golden blond, re-fermented in the bottle and therefore rich in carbonation. You taste spicy yeast notes, a sweetish malt base and a dry, slightly bitter finish in which the alcohol comes along.

Order in the online shopWilderen Tripel Kanunnik

The combination

Why this works together

Cheese sauce is rich, ham is salty and the chicory brings a bitter note of its own. The carbonation of a Tripel cuts through the fat of the sauce, and the beer's own bitterness sits alongside that of the chicory instead of clashing with it. The weight is right too: a light beer would disappear beneath a gratinated plate.

At the table

The dish

  • Before 4 people
  • Ready in 60 minutes
  • Type main course

What you need

  • 8 heads of chicory
  • 8 slices of ham
  • 50 g butter, plus extra for greasing
  • 50 g flour
  • 500 ml whole milk
  • 150 g mature cheese, grated
  • 1 tsp mustard
  • 2 tbsp breadcrumbs
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • nutmeg
  • salt and white pepper

How to make it

  1. Cut a small cone out of the base of each head with a pointed knife. That is the bitterest part.
  2. Bring a large pan of water to the boil with salt and the sugar. Boil the chicory for 10 minutes, lift it out and let it drain on a clean tea towel. Gently press the moisture out.
  3. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
  4. Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour and let it cook for 2 minutes without colouring.
  5. Pour in the milk a splash at a time and keep stirring until you have a smooth, thick sauce.
  6. Take the pan off the heat, stir in 100 g of cheese and the mustard and season with nutmeg, salt and pepper.
  7. Roll each chicory head in a slice of ham and lay them side by side in a greased baking dish.
  8. Pour the sauce over it and sprinkle the rest of the cheese and the breadcrumbs on top.
  9. Bake the dish for 25 minutes, until the top is brown. Let it stand for 5 minutes before you serve.

In the glass

Serving

Pour at 8 to 10 degrees into a bulbous stemmed glass. Pour in one go and stop as soon as you see the yeast reach the neck, so that it stays in the bottle. A collar of two fingers of foam keeps the spicy aroma above the glass.

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