Frisee Salad

We are enjoying green salads right now before it gets too hot and the lettuces turn bitter.  One of my favorite salads is made with Frisee; sometimes you see it labeled as Chicory.  B Street Growers in San Diego sometimes has this for sale as a hydroponic lettuce, with roots attached, and sometimes I grow in in my own garden, though I pick the heads when they are still quite small.

The salad is easy to make and is almost a meal in itself; I make this without measuring anything, so you can adjust the ingredients below to taste.  For a small salad for two people you will need:

1 small head of Frisee
2 slices of bacon
1 very small piece of Roquefort Cheese
2 tablespoons Red Wine Vinegar

Wash, dry, and cut the lettuce into bite-sized pieces and place in a salad bowl.  Slice the Roquefort into small chunks and add on top of the salad; try to separate the chunks a little so you don’t have one big “glob” of cheese~

Slice the bacon into small pieces and fry until browned; in France you can use lardons, but here bacon works just fine; remove the bacon from the pan and sprinkle over the Roquefort, setting the fry pan with bacon grease aside~

At this point your salad is ready except for the dressing.  We will make our own warm vinaigrette of sorts: use the vinegar to deglaze the frying pan you just used for the bacon, including the bacon grease; cook for a minute to reduce the vinegar and pour immediately over the salad and toss; top with a little freshly ground pepper; serve warm.

Any salad looks better served on its own pretty plate; and with a nice serving set.  Pour le plaisir des yeux, here is what the French call couverts a salade or service de salade.   These are sterling silver with vermeil (gold over sterling)~

I marvel at each piece of old French sterling I see; works of art from the front~

But especially from the back~

Bon appetit et bon weekend a tous~