Dinner Tonight: Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing
For me, the only kind of spinach salad is a wilted spinach salad. For proof, I give you this golden oldie, reinterpreted by Alton Brown. This sucker is flawless. The red wine vinegar balances the bacon fat, the creamy egg contrasts the crisp red onion. And best of all, the hot dressing wilts the spinach leaves. Though I found success a while back with this wilted spinach salad with feta, the original is probably better. Thank you, Alton Brown.
I left the instruction for hard boiling the eggs because everyone seems to have an opinion on the matter. Alton likes to cook his in an electric kettle. Simply Recipes uses the traditional stove top method. I've even weighed in on the issue, having had some remarkable luck cooking them for 4 hours in a crock pot. Obviously, this isn't practical, but hey, they were delicious. Anyway, whichever method you choose is fine—just remember to add the eggs to the salad. I devoured half of this salad before I remembered the egg, hence its absence from the picture.
Spinach Salad with Warm Bacon Dressing
-serves 4-
Ingredients:
1/2 pound baby spinach, washed, dried, and stems removed
2 hardboiled eggs
8 slices bacon, chopped
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
salt and pepper
4 white mushrooms, sliced
1 small red onion, thinly sliced
Procedure:
1. Add the bacon to a large skillet set over medium heat. Cook until the fat has rendered and the bacon pieces are crisp. Remove the bacon and drain on a paper towel.
2. Pour the bacon grease into a large bowl. Whisk in the vinegar, sugar, and mustard. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
3. Add the spinach, bacon pieces, mushrooms, and red onion to another large bowl. Pour the bacon dressing on top and toss until well coated.
4. Remove the shells of the hard-boiled eggs, and thinly slice. Add to the salad and serve. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
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5 Comments:
Where are the eggs?
izatryt at 4:22PM on 07/31/09
I could not agree with you more about a wilted spinach salad. I find raw mushrooms and uncooked spinach a deplorable machination.
Dish at 5:42PM on 07/31/09
As for the bacon, i'd just use a nitrate free turkey bacon. Tastes the same but is much healthier.
rawfoods at 1:36PM on 08/02/09
This is about the only salad my husband actually likes. And the hot bacon dressing is good on other lettuces as well...my mother used to put it on dandelion greens, but you can but it on something hearty like Romaine as well. Or just about anything. Some of the lettuces won't wilt as much, but that's fine, too. The warm dressing along with the cold crispy greens is nice.
And I got a good chuckle over the fact that you ate half the salad before you remembered the eggs. I usually eat whatever it is before I think that maybe I should have taken some photos.
dbcurrie at 10:50PM on 08/02/09
While I love me a good wilted spinach salad, I partake in raw spinach salads on a regular basis. Raw baby spinach, crumbled chevre, roasted red peppers, kalamata olives, and a simple balsamic vinegar & oil dressing is a fantastic starter salad to add on to almost any meal.
This salad looks great. I'm not a hard-boiled egg fan -- would scrambled eggs work? Would some other protein be a good addition?
JGordon at 2:58PM on 08/03/09