Serious Eats: Recipes

Dinner Tonight: Warm Salad with Jerusalem Artichokes, Bacon, and Radicchio

Posted by Blake Royer, January 10, 2008

Winter salads often take on a different quality than those made in summer: they get warm, for one, for obvious reasons. Juicy, fragrant tomatoes become a thing of seasons past, while roasted winter squash and beets take over. Sharp, bitter greens make more appearances, like endive and arugula, cutting the richness and mimicking the snap of winter air.

This recipe, from Jamie Oliver's newest book Cook With Jamie, caught my eye, because I'd never eaten Jerusalem artichokes—but I always imagined it would be a funny scenario if someone was sent to the shop for the beautiful green globes, and came home with these gnarly tubers. They look like ginger, have the texture of potatoes, and taste faintly of mushroom and artichoke. In this recipe, they're boiled until just tender, then thrown into a hot skillet with bacon and red onion until the whole mixture has been browned and caramelized within an inch of its life. The sticky, crispy, porky mixture is tossed with radicchio and some butter lettuce, parsley, and balsamic vinegar. Less is more—the heat from the artichoke mixture can wilt the lettuce, and too much oil can ruin it—but with the right balance this is mighty good.

Printed from http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2008/01/dinner-tonight-warm-salad-with-jerusalem-arti.html