Bacon Nation: 125 Irresistible Recipes (14 page)

⅔ cup vegetable oil

¼ cup sherry vinegar

1½ teaspoons Dijon mustard

3 tablespoons chopped fresh mint

2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 large clove garlic, minced

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1
Prepare the salad: Bring 5 to 6 cups of water to a boil in a large saucepan over high heat. Lightly salt the water, add the green beans, cover the pan, and let come to a boil. Remove the cover, then reduce the heat as necessary and let the green beans simmer until just tender, 3 to 5 minutes. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with ice water.

2
Turn off the heat. Using tongs or a slotted spoon, transfer the green beans to the bowl of ice water to cool. Set aside the green bean cooking water in the saucepan. When the green beans are cooled, drain them well in a colander and set aside.

3
Add the potatoes, garlic cloves, thyme sprigs, bay leaf, and peppercorns to the cooking water in the saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat as necessary and let the potatoes simmer until they are just tender, 7 to 10 minutes. (Don’t allow to overcook.) Drain the potatoes well in a colander, discarding the garlic, thyme, bay leaf, and peppercorns. Rinse the potatoes under cold water to cool them, then rinse them again and drain well. Transfer the potatoes to a large mixing bowl.

4
Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 350˚F. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

5
Spread the cashews on the prepared baking sheet. Bake the cashews until lightly browned, 5 to 6 minutes. Remove the cashews from the oven, let them cool, then set them aside in a small bowl.

6
Add the drained green beans and the red onion to the mixing bowl with the potatoes and toss to combine. Refrigerate the green bean and potato mixture while preparing the lardons. The salad can be prepared up to this point and refrigerated, covered, for a couple of days before serving. If you are not serving the salad right away, store the toasted cashews separately in a covered container.

7
Cut the slab of bacon into lardons by first cutting it crosswise into slices about ½ inch thick. Stack 2 slices and cut them lengthwise into ½-inch-wide strips. Finally, cut the strips crosswise into lardons about 1 inch long (see box on
page 11
). Place a medium-size skillet large enough to hold the lardons in a single layer over medium-high heat and add 3 tablespoons of water (this will prevent the lardons from browning too quickly and crisping as their fat renders). Add the lardons, reduce the heat to medium-low, and let the lardons cook and render their fat for about 25 minutes, turning the lardons as necessary to brown them on all sides. The lardons should brown and have soft centers, without becoming too crisp or dry. Transfer the lardons to a paper towel-lined plate to drain.

8
Make the salad dressing: Combine the vegetable oil, sherry vinegar, mustard, mint, and parsley in a mini food processor or blender. Pulse for a few seconds to combine. Add the minced garlic and pulse once more, just to combine. Pour enough of the dressing over the green bean and potato mixture to lightly coat the vegetables. Add the lardons and cashews to the salad and toss well. Taste for seasoning, adding salt and black pepper to taste (you may not need to add salt as the lardons are salty), and serve.

Serves 4 to 5 as a main dish

The Cobb salad was, they say, invented in the glory days of Hollywood by Robert Cobb, owner of the famed celebrity hangout the Brown Derby. Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire, Jean Harlow, Lana Turner—the whole Hollywood pantheon fell in love with this beautifully composed version of a chef’s salad. It featured bacon, blue cheese, hard-cooked eggs, greens, avocado, chicken, and tomatoes arranged in formal rows on a large platter, dressed with a lovely vinaigrette. We make our version of Cobb’s salad with a mustardy curry dressing that has a tinge of honey for sweetness. The salad is easily changed according to what you like and how you plan to serve it. For example, impress guests at your next summer dinner party by substituting one pound of grilled or poached shellfish, such as shrimp, lobster, or scallops, for the chicken and toss some pungent watercress for the romaine lettuce leaves.

For the curry dressing

⅔ cup extra-virgin olive oil

¼ cup apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon honey

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

¾ to 1 teaspoon hot curry powder, according to taste

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons minced shallots

For the Cobb salad

8 slices bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces

2 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves (8 ounces each)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Juice of half a lemon

8 to 9 cups packed romaine leaves, bite-size pieces, rinsed and dried

⅓ cup packed fresh basil leaves, chopped

2 large ripe tomatoes, cored and diced

⅓ cup chopped red onion

2 avocados, pitted, peeled, and cut into ¼-inch-thick slices

2 large hard-cooked eggs (see
page 98
), peeled and coarsely chopped

¾ cup (3 ounces) crumbled Roquefort or other blue cheese

1
Make the curry dressing: Combine the olive oil, cider vinegar, honey, mustard, and curry powder in a blender and blend on medium speed for a few seconds until smooth and well combined. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add the shallots and pulse 3 to 4 times to combine. Set the curry dressing aside.

2
Make the Cobb salad: Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until crisp and the fat is rendered, 7 to 9 minutes, stirring often and adjusting the heat as necessary. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Pour the bacon fat into a small bowl and wipe the skillet clean with paper towels.

3
Place a chicken breast in a heavy-duty plastic bag or between 2 pieces of waxed paper and pound it with the flat side of a meat pounder or Chinese cleaver until it is about ½ inch thick. Repeat with the second chicken breast half.

4
Season the chicken with salt and pepper to taste. Heat 1 to 2 tablespoons of the reserved bacon fat in the skillet over medium-high heat until it’s hot, about 30 seconds. Add the chicken and cook until golden brown, about 3 minutes per side, turning once.

5
Add the lemon juice and 3 tablespoons of water to the skillet, reduce the heat to medium-low, and let the chicken simmer, covered, until it is cooked through, 3 to 4 minutes, depending on the thickness of the chicken breasts. To test for doneness, use a paring knife to make a small incision into the thickest part of each chicken breast half. The meat should appear white with no trace of pink and the juices should run clear. Transfer the chicken to a carving board and let it cool for about 10 minutes before cutting it into ½- to 1-inch pieces.

6
Place the romaine and the basil in a large mixing bowl and toss it with about ¼ cup of the curry dressing, then spread the greens out on a large serving platter. Toss the chicken in the same bowl with 3 tablespoons of the dressing. Arrange the chicken on top of the greens in a single row. Add the tomatoes and red onion to the bowl and toss with 1 to 2 tablespoons of the dressing. Arrange the tomato and onion mixture in a row next to the chicken. Arrange the avocado slices and hard-cooked eggs in rows and drizzle the remaining dressing over them. Sprinkle the bacon and blue cheese evenly over the entire salad and serve.

Serves 4

Americans (and our cousins in the British Isles) are devoted to bacon and eggs. We are relative newcomers to the practice of wrapping vegetables in bacon as, for example, Sicilians do with their famous cipollate con pancetta—slices of bacon (or the more traditional pancetta) wrapped around spring onions or scallions. Combining the two ideas, a bacon-wrapped vegetable and eggs, seemed a fine way to create a lunch or dinner salad. So we tried it and it worked. For a more substantial meal, the salad is really nice with some freshly caught flounder dredged in cornmeal and panfried in bubbling brown butter.

For the bread cubes

2½ cups sourdough or rustic peasant bread cut into ½- to 1-inch cubes

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

¼ teaspoon minced fresh rosemary leaves

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the sherry vinaigrette

2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

½ teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 small clove garlic, minced

¼ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the bacon-wrapped asparagus and the salad

20 medium-thick to thick asparagus stalks, trimmed

8 slices bacon

Salt

4 cold large eggs

About 8 cups mixed salad greens

1
Prepare the bread cubes: Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 300˚F.

2
Place the bread cubes on a rimmed baking sheet or broiler pan. Sprinkle the 1 tablespoon olive oil over the bread cubes and toss to coat. Season the bread cubes with the rosemary and salt and pepper to taste and bake until just crisp, 8 to 10 minutes. The bread cubes should not be as dry or as crisply toasted as croutons. Set the cubes aside in a small bowl and increase the oven temperature to 350˚F if you will be baking the bacon-wrapped asparagus.

3
Make the sherry vinaigrette: Whisk together the sherry vinegar, mustard, and garlic in a small bowl. Add the ¼ cup of olive oil in a steady stream, whisking constantly until it is well incorporated. Season the sherry vinaigrette with salt and pepper to taste. Set the vinaigrette aside. Or put all of the ingredients for the sherry vinaigrette in a small jar, cover it, and shake it vigorously just before serving.

4
Prepare the bacon-wrapped asparagus stalks and the salad: Hold 5 asparagus stalks together in a bunch and either wrap 2 slices of bacon around the middle of each bundle or, starting about 1 inch from the cut ends and working on the diagonal, wrap the bacon around the bunch, overlapping the slices slightly and leaving the tips of the asparagus stalks exposed. Repeat with the remaining asparagus stalks and bacon, making a total of 4 bundles.

5
Place the bacon-wrapped asparagus bundles on the rack of a broiler pan and bake them until the bacon is crisp and the asparagus is tender, 12 to 15 minutes, turning the bundles over once after about 6 minutes. Alternatively, you can cook the asparagus bundles in a large skillet over medium-low heat. Cover the skillet and cook the asparagus bundles until the bacon is browned all over and the asparagus stalks are crisp-tender, 12 to 15 minutes total, turning the bundles every 3 to 4 minutes.

6
While the asparagus bundles cook, bring a medium-size saucepan of lightly salted water to a boil. Put one of the cold eggs on a spoon and lower it carefully into the water so as not to break its shell. Repeat with the remaining eggs. Boil the eggs until the whites are set and the yolks are still slightly runny, exactly 6 minutes. Transfer the eggs to a strainer and rinse them under cold water. Fill the saucepan with cold water, add the eggs, and let them sit until you are ready to assemble the salad.

7
When the asparagus bundles are done, transfer them to a plate and cover them with aluminum foil to keep warm, reserving the bacon drippings in the broiler pan or skillet. To assemble the salad, carefully shell the eggs. Warm the bacon fat in the broiler pan or skillet over medium heat. Gently add the eggs to the pan and roll them in the drippings for just a few seconds to heat them a little and coat and color them lightly.