Bacon and Egg Salad

By Catherine Newman

Makes: 4 servings

Total carbohydrates: 12 grams per serving

Hands-on time: 35 minutes

Total time: 35 minutes

This decadent concoction is based on a fancy French bistro salad, Frisée aux Lardons, which tops bitter curly endive with lardons (French for “bacon chunks”), a poached egg, and croutons. We’re skipping the croutons here, for the sake of a carb-reduced life, but we are doubling the bacon, so really, it’s a net gain! Plus, topping a salad with a poached egg is kind of like topping a salad with a rich, delicious ladleful of Hollandaise sauce, in the best possible way.

Ingredients

8(ish) lightly packed cups kale, collards, or curly endive, thick stems removed and leaves torn or sliced into bite-size pieces

2 tablespoons white vinegar

8 slices of thick bacon, sliced crosswise into small pieces

1 shallot, finely chopped (or a tablespoon or 2 of finely chopped onion)

¼ cup sherry vinegar or red- or white-wine vinegar

½ teaspoon kosher salt (or half as much table salt)

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon or 1 teaspoon dried (or skip this and it will still be good)

4 eggs

Freshly ground pepper

Instructions

1.Put the greens in a large bowl and set aside. Fill a pot half-full with water, add the white vinegar, and bring to a boil over high heat while you make the bacon and dressing. (The jury’s out on whether adding vinegar to egg-poaching water actually helps keep the egg from spreading too much, but I go ahead and add it anyway.)

2. Cook the bacon in a medium-sized skillet over medium heat, stirring occasionally until most of the fat is melted and the bacon is crisp, 10 or so minutes. Remove the bacon to a paper-towel-covered plate.

3. Pour out all but 2 tablespoons of the bacon fat (you can just eyeball this—it’s not an exact science), then fry the shallot (or onion) in it until soft and translucent, 2 – 4 minutes. Add the vinegar and salt and cook until the vinegar is bubbling and a little bit reduced (another minute or 2). Turn off the heat, whisk in the olive oil and tarragon, and pour most of the hot dressing over the greens, using tongs to toss it all well, until the greens look a bit wilted. Taste a leaf: if it’s underdressed, add the rest of the dressing; if it only needs more salt or a whisper of vinegar, then add just that. Portion the dressed greens into four bowls and distribute the bacon evenly over them.

4. Now poach the eggs. Turn the pot of water down to a simmer and carefully crack the eggs and slide them into the water (I crack the eggs into individual mugs first, then slide each one into the water. If I didn’t have a dishwasher, I might not do it this way.) Poach the eggs until the whites are set but the yolks are still soft, about 3 – 4 minutes. Remove the eggs with a slotted spoon to a paper-towel-covered plate.

5. Top each bowl with an egg and freshly ground pepper, and serve immediately.

About Catherine

Catherine loves to write about food and feeding people. In addition to her recipe and parenting blog Ben & Birdy (which has about 15,000 weekly readers), she edits the ChopChop series of mission-driven cooking magazines. This kids’ cooking magazine won the James Beard Publication of the Year award in 2013 – the first non-profit ever to win it – and a Parents’ Choice Gold Award. She also helped develop Sprout, a WIC version of the magazine for families enrolled in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), as well as Seasoned, their senior version. They distribute over a million magazines annually, through paid subscriptions, doctor’s offices, schools, and hospitals. Their mission started with obesity as its explicit focus – and has shifted, over the years, to a more holistic one, with health, happiness, and real food at its core. That’s the same vibe Catherine brings to the diaTribe column.

[Photo Credit: Catherine Newman]